VOL. XI. | NOTES. 89 
and only one bird was seen carrying a feather at one and the 
same time. The nest was practically completed and lined 
with feathers by the evening of June 22nd. The bird was 
seen to take one feather to it on the morning of June 23rd. 
The first egg was deposited in the nest on the morning of 
June 24th, and another egg was added each succeeding morning 
until the nest contained five eggs, the fifth and last egg being 
produced on June 28th, and on the morning of the same day 
the bird began to sit. Nothing was seen or heard of the bird 
from the time it was observed taking a feather to the nest on 
June 23rd until it began to mcubate on June 28th. None 
of the eggs were hatched at nine o’clock in the evening of 
July 9th, but at nine o'clock in the morning of July 10th 
three were hatched, and at nine o’clock in the evening of the 
same day another egg was hatched, and the remaining egg— 
the fifth—was hatched between nine o’clock in the morning 
and nine o’clock in the evening of the following day, July 11th. 
The bird commenced feeding the brood on July 10th, the day 
on which the first four eggs were hatched. The feeding of 
the young birds was continued each day until about half-past 
nine o’clock in the evening, when the parent-bird retired to 
the nest, covering her brood. 
[ had the nest and its environs under observation for about 
half-an-hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, and 
frequently for varying periods at other times of the day 
throughout the operations ; and I made close inspections of 
the nest about nine o’clock in the morning and nine o’clock 
in the evening. At these times the sitting-bird voluntarily 
left the nest for a few minutes and [ took the opportunity, 
when it was away, of looking at the nest. 
On approaching the nest in the late afternoon of July 21st, 
one of the young birds flew out of the nest, and the other 
young birds must have shortly afterwards followed it, for 
in the evening of the same day the nest was found to be 
empty. One of the young birds was caught and replaced in 
the nest. The parent-bird was on the nest after nightfall the 
same day, July 21st, and it uttered a hissing sound when the 
nest was then visited. Probably the brood would have re- 
mained a day longer in the nest had they not been disturbed. 
The young birds, when they left the nest, took cover under 
thick herbaceous plants growing in close proximity to the 
nest, where they apparently remained all the following day, 
July 22nd, being fed by the parent-bird with a small greenish- 
coloured caterpillar which it found feeding upon Rose-bay 
Willow-herb, Epilobium angustifoliwum. The nest was un 
occupied on the night of July 22nd. The next day, July 23rd, 
