262 BRITISH BIRDS. [vol. xv. 



good many inches. The most coveted position for the young 

 was behind her legs and under her tail. The others were some- 

 times between her feet and sometimes under her wings. Now 

 and then they got out in the sun, but did not stay long. While 

 they were small they could all sit comfortably between her 

 feet ; in fact, in the earliest stages one could clearly see her 

 working them there before she finally settled over them . Later, 

 they seemed to feel the heat more and more, in spite of her 

 efforts to shield them, and became very restless. Under these 

 circumstances the hen Sparrow-Hawk was more peevish with 

 the young than I had ever seen before, and more than once 

 indicated to them that the discomfort was not entirely 

 confined to them. She never led them when the sun was 

 directl}^ on the nest. If she brought food with her when 

 she returned she deposited it on the nest and took no further 

 notice of it. If the sun was clouded over sufficiently long 

 for her to recover enough to do so she would break the prey 

 up. If the sun came out while she was doing this she hurried 

 and, if she considered it inadvisable to finish the meal, she 

 would pick up what was left, and fly away to drop it and 

 return immediately to resume sheltering the young. On one 

 such occasion she picked up the remains with her beak instead 

 of her foot. Her partner used to bring rather big game ; 

 he preferred Blackbirds and Thrushes to anything else, 

 though he brought several old Sparrows he had caught on 

 the early ripe grain. On one occasion he brought an old, 

 and very tough, Stock-Dove which gave the hen a vast 

 amount of trouble to break up. Nearly half of it was carried 

 away and dropped after some twent}^ minutes hard work 

 on it. 



During some of the hottest periods her. breathing became 

 very laboured and as the sun travelled westwards so she moved 

 round on the nest to keep her back towards it, and then I could 

 see how her respiratory movements were communicated even 

 to her tail. By means of a stop-watch I timed her respiration 

 rate on several different days and found it to vary from 

 151 to 155 to the minute. 



If the incubation, maybe owing to the heat, was unduly 

 l(jng, nature compensated the parents by making the nestling 

 period unusually short. I noticed by the seventh day that 

 the young seemed a little forward but by the fourteenth 

 it was very noticeable that they were growing faster than 

 usual. As stated in my previous notes the young were 

 hatched two on June 25th and the other on June 26th. They 

 seemed quite ready to leave the nest when I was observing 



