172



creature, looking the picture of misery. Later in the day I saw

two youngsters hopping (they could not walk until some days

later) after their mother, and by accident they found the new

nest and instantly flopped into it, and made it their head-quarters

for some two hours, floundering about, and hopelessly marring

their mother’s schemes of concealment. Afterwards they

hopped about all over the place, rushing to their mother for food ;

and later I observed a third. But the mother repaired and took

to her nest ; and on the evening of the 25th the three young

looked neglected and very miserable. On the 26th, the piteous

cry of one of the young birds, No. 3 in order of age, nearly

broke my heart it had been entirely deserted. I made a

search, and found the dead body of a No. 4, evidently the one I

had seen alone in the nest. It was now lying about two feet

from the nest, or perhaps a little more, and probably had been

carried to the place where I had found it, and then had been

deserted as too young to follow for food. No. 3 I took into the

house, but did not succeed in rearing it. The sitting mother

came off her nest from time to time to feed Nos. 1 and 2, who

settled themselves down in the neighbourhood of the uest, and

darted after her the instant she came off. Eventually No. 2 died

a few hours after a thunderstorm, apparently from inflammation,

and No. 1 alone survives,


The only peculiarity about the nests was their depth, and

steep coffee-cup sides.


According to the Royal Natural History, “ the female lays

four eggs, bluish in colour and spotted with yellow.” I11 the

first nest, there were four young birds ; and I found two eggs,

one near the place to which the female carried the excreta, and

the other in the same direction but not carried so far. I am

reasonably satisfied that these eggs had been laid in the nest, and

had been removed by the female. Only two eggs were laid in

the second nest; but I picked up a third on the 13th July, in

the spot whither the female often retreated when disurbed. At

a very early stage of the second nest I had noticed the prema¬

ture rejection of the male by the female, which was followed by

the sudden desertion of the nest ; this splendid bird had taken

a chill, and, to my great sorrow, died during the night of July

12th-13th.


I cannot make my eggs agree with the description

mentioned above. The ground is a pale gray-white; and they

are blotched all over with pale or gray-brown. At the thick end,

the “ spots” run more into one another than over the rest of the



