CHESTNUT-SIDED WAEBLEE 319 



and a Chestnut visitor. We watched them with 

 keen interest for several hours. The father Red- 

 start did not appear, and was doubtless dead. 



The young were fed at dangerously short inter- 

 vals; we feared they would leave the nest 

 dyspeptics for life ; and they would have been 

 crammed still more if it had not been for the time 

 it took the Redstart to drive off the Chestnut, and 

 the delay her attacks caused him ; for she had no 

 wish for his kind offices, and, as Mrs. Miller 

 remarked, like some other philanthropists that 

 made no difference to him ! When she saw him 

 coming with food, before he was anywhere near 

 the tree, she dashed at him with spread tail and 

 resentment in every feather. His long-suffering 

 meekness was philosophical. He flew before her, 

 waited till she had spent her anger and gone off 

 or down in the bushes for an insect, when he 

 slipped up to the nest and fed his charges. It 

 seemed as if she could not bear the sight of him. 

 Again and again she drove him out of the tree. 

 Sometimes she almost tumbled her youngsters out 

 of the nest, flouncing at him over their heads 

 when he was in the act of feeding them. Once 

 or twice he came to a twig behind the nest, leaned 

 over, and stretched the food across to the birds, 

 as if to make sure of getting off before she caught 

 him. But he was no coward, and took a good 

 claw-to-claw tumble with her when she had 

 snapped her bill at him once too often. Except 



