THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 137 



male will attend the brood of nestlings. Three nests of young 

 were brought from the forest and placed in three cages somewhat 

 apart. Each nest had its female, which in one case was attended 

 by three males, in the second two, and in the third one, all 

 helping in the task of feeding the young. In the first-mentioned 

 case this was observed before the nest was removed, and was 

 continued for fourteen days after the removal to the new 

 quarters, where the feeding was done through the wires. Con- 

 sidering the large number of female wrens, it seems probable 

 that young females pass the first year without breeding. Un- 

 fortunately broods of both species suffer much from the 

 depredations of foxes. 



My friend Mr. G. Graham, of Heytesbury, has supplied me with 

 an interesting series of observations, the result of four years' 

 careful watching of Malurus gouldii. " This bird," he says, " is 

 hatched out on the fifteenth day from the time of laying the last 

 egg. The eyes open on the sixth day, the wings are feathered 

 and fairly fledged on the seventh to eighth days, and they leave 

 the nests in from ten to fourteen days. The young birds are 

 short-tailed when leaving the nest, the feathers rarely exceeding 

 one inch in length. At the end of the first month the tail seems 

 to have attained its full length, and young wrens are able to 

 catch flies and otherwise provide themselves with food, though 

 they are still fed by the parents for another month or six weeks. 

 They seem to require teaching as to the manipulation of the 

 bulkier items of their food. Last summer I watched a female 

 wren give a young bird a lesson. The latter was trying to reduce a 

 large caterpillar to a condition fit for swallowing by beating with 

 its bill, but after a few strokes the caterpillar would slip from the 

 young bird's bill and fall amongst the grass, when the old bird 

 would pick it up and place it on the log near its offspring, 

 then, giving the caterpillar a few strokes to show how it should be 

 done, vvould leave the young bird to finish it. Sometimes 

 the object would be picked up and handed over without further 

 treatment, and sometimes would have to be repeated several 

 times before the food was finally ready for swallowing. I have 

 observed these actions many times, and on one occasion spent at 

 least fifteen minutes carefully watching the method of procedure. 

 After leaving the nest the young wrens, male and female, are 

 alike in outward appearance until their fifth month, when the first 

 moult takes place, after which the males are distinguished from 

 the females, young or old, by their light blue tails, which remain 

 the outward symbol of their sex until the second moult, in the 

 tenth or eleventh month, when they assume the full plumage of 

 blues and blacks, with a still darker blue tail. The bill also 

 becomes a darker colour, and finally a jet black. It wears this 

 spring and summer suit until the third moult, generally in 



