30



Mr. W. E. Teschemakek,



hay, and I looked in vain. The annoying part of it was that it was

impossible to examine Beauty’s nest without stepping on the Com¬

mon, and, if one did this, the chances were that one would step on

The Flirt’s nest. So I waited and watched. Now and again a

sharp eye would get a glimpse of Beauty leaving' her nest as one

entered the aviary, but The Flirt would either leave the nest before

that event or else she would judiciously select the exact moment

when one’s back was turned. So the mystery remained a mystery

until almost the end of the last chapter. 0 wonderful Book of

Birds ! So vividly interesting and yet so hard to translate and with

so much written between the lines ! What mistakes we often make

in trying to read that Book !


The male never sat and never fed the hens, so when, on the

2nd July, I saw him stealthily carry an insect to the nest I knew

that the Stork had alighted on our aviary and that Beauty was a

proud mother. A day or two later The Flirt also began to feed, so I

concluded that the Stork must have paid us another visit, and from

the extraordinary celerity with which the live-bait disappeared one

might have reasonably thought that there were at least a dozen

young' Whinchats. The Flirt, mysterious as ever, would not give us

the least hint as to the whereabouts of her family. She would perch

in a medlar-tree, piping “ u-tic,” (the first syllable very long, the

second very short) and sometimes “ u-tic-tic ” for half-an-hour at a

time until one’s patience was exhausted. But one day I detected

The Flirt in the very act of leaving' the nest and—it was Beauty’s

irest she left. At last the mystery was solved. I went down on my

knees and turned over every inch of the Common. Yes, there was

only one nest, and that contained five well-grown young Whinchats,

evidently all of the same family. What then had The Flirt been

doing all this time ? She had been helping her more fortunate

sister to rear the latter’s family : just that and nothing less. I have

known polygamy where there should have been monogamy ; I have

known communal nests containing' clutches of eggs laid by two

hens ; I have known assistance given in rearing a brood by a parent

who had lost her own brood, and also by the young of an earlier

brood, but that a hen, whose charms had been despised and advances

rejected, should voluntarily assist a rival whom she had every reason



