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the lusty young of our shrubberies and hedgerows, or even of

the Canary, will have very mistaken ideas of the size, or rather

lack of it, of the young of some of these small foreign birds.

The following does not greatly over-represent the state of affairs.

Imagine two tiny beads, one tinier — no, that is impossible —

one less tiny than the other, joined together by an absurdly long

fine thread. In my case these were stretched out quite straight

along the bottom of the (according to our ideas) much-too-large

nest, very like a duck as one sees it sometimes laid out straight

on the slab of a poulterer’s shop. The two beads with the

connecting filament have the appearance of being as lifeless as

the duck, nay much more so ; and yet the three constitute the

young bird. The mother goes to the side of the nest and

whispers “tsit” “ tsit.” Suddenly the tiniest of the two beads

wriggles up like the ghost of a red worm (not the garden worm,

but the wavy thread supplied by some to the smallest fish), an

imperceptible opening like the eye of a needle appears for a

moment on the far side of the bead, and the whole affair instantly

collapses into the poulterer’s duck. It is during this moment that

the mother gives a peck—nothing more so far as the eye can see. I

noticed repeatedly that, after taking food, she would fly to the

nest and give five or six pecks. There would not be any external

sign that she obtained the food from the crop, but I suppose it

must have been so. Perhaps an atom of food was obtained from

the crop with each action that developed into the peck. And it

was a couple of pairs of these filament-joined beads that I found

fathered upon me on the night of that 15th day of November,

1899.


The heavy fall, the exposure to the cold, the protracted

fast, had brought them into a state of helpless collapse. With

difficulty I aroused the strongest, and managed to give it a

morsel of food. It was so weak, and opened its mouth so un¬

certainly and feebly, that I had the greatest difficulty in dabbing

in the brush with the speck of food at the tip. But the little

chap picked up wonderfully ; and after a while I managed also

to give a little food to the weakling,—and thus I fed them steadily

up till midnight, when they became stupid with sleep, and I left

them to their rest. The next morning was less foggy, and I

kept quite away from the nest; and from outside the room I had

the satisfaction of hearing that at least one young bird was alive

and being fed.


At 11.30 on November 18th, the strongest left the nest and

fluttered down on to the floor and scuttled about, but I replaced

it in the nest. A little later both of them fluttered round the



