102. Selous: Ornithological Observations in Brittany. 
then something larger—of goodly dimensions—what I cannot 
say, and this she fed the chicks with. She continued of her 
own efforts to feed and brood them at intervals, and every 
time whilst she brooded, the male flew in with a fly (except 
once when it was a caterpillar) in his bill, which he gave her. 
This she sometimes ate at once, but more often remained with 
it in her bill whilst she sat on the nest, and, on leaving it, 
carried if off with her. In a moment or two she would return 
with food for the nursery, but I have no doubt that she had 
first eaten what her husband had brought her, for once when 
this was a caterpillar, she flew off with it and returned with a 
fly. 
And so this pretty little play went on. I do not think the 
male ever fed the young, except thus indirectly, but I am not 
sure. He certainly more than once dipped down his head into 
the nest, but I think it was to eat something in it, whether a 
fly or other winged thing that had been dropped there from 
his own or the female’s bill, or an excrement in the orthodox 
manner, I am not sure. Several times something was picked 
thus out of the nest and eaten by both parents, but mostly 
the hen, and that these were for the most part, if not always, 
the droppings of the young birds, would be according to all 
analogy. But I could never quite make this out. They were 
apparently very much smaller than in the case of the Garden 
Warbler, but this might be in relation to the size of the young. 
My observations were continued in the afternoon. The male. 
does certainly, I think, sometimes feed the young because, on 
one occasion, the arriving bird came so close after the one that 
went—the female which had been brooding the young—and 
from the opposite direction to that in which she had flown, that 
it could hardly by any possiblility have been the same. This 
bird then, which must therefore have been the male, fed the 
young. This however, seems only to be occasional with him, 
his usual habit being to bring something to the female, which 
either gives it to the young, eats it herself, there and then, or 
sits with it in her bill till she flies off, carrying it with her, pre- 
sumably to eat elsewhere. I have seen her do all three, but 
the first is the least frequent. When she feeds the young with 
what is brought to her in this way, she does not hop on to the 
rim of the nest and give it them from there, which is otherwise 
her usual method, but rises up in it, where she sits and bends 
down ther head to them. This gives her a lean and lanky 
appearance, or rather it exaggerates it, for this, and a certain 
smoothness and glossiness of the plumage is more characteris- 
tic of this species than of our own Warblers. She shows, 
on these occasions, the feathered part of her legs, but not the 
naked shanks. The food thus brought in for the female, as she 
sits, is presented and taken by her in the tip of the bill, and held 
Naturalist, 
