on Breeding Tur?iix lepur an a in German Bird-rooms. 221


vicinity, the charming private family life of this little fowl ; the

latter is continuously busied in solicitous care for its tiny flock.


If I appeared at the door with living ants, bacon-beetles

and their larvae, which were accepted with remarkable pleasure,*

the old bird came hurrying up to and almost took them out of

my hand. At the beginning of the second week also, he led the

youngsters to the egg-food and seeds, as well as to the drinking

water.


On the third day a young one already began to pick up

ants’ eggs unaided, on the fifth day they all did so, but the male

still continued to feed them freely. On the fourth day they

imitated the digging in the sand of the old bird and took the

most comical leaps in the air. The eggs again differ in this

species, even from the same hen: they vary from almost globular

to oval (20-25 x 16-19 mm.), are smooth and slightly glossy, with

whitish to grey ground-tint, fairly uniformly marked with larger

and smaller pale to dark brownish and blue-blackish spots and

dots, which generally become larger, darker, and denser, and

form a zone, towards the blunter extremity.


Downy plumage (at the age of three days, after Hauth) :—

“ From the upper mandible to the middle of the head a narrow

red-brown longitudinal stripe; from this point the latter is

modified into two similar feebly curved stripes to the back of the

head, enclosing a broad fawn-yellowish white stripe : near the

aforementioned stripes on the crown 011 either side, a paler and a

darker one as far as the nape. Above and below the eye a fawn-

3'ellowish longitudinal stripe. Five similarly arranged and

coloured longitudinal stripes on the back. Under surface greyish

white, bill brownish, darker on the upper half; feet strong and

flesh-coloured ; eyes brownish.” By the second day the quills of

the wings break through ; 011 the fifth day the small plumage

sprouts; on the eighth day the wings already cover the back, and

the small plumage is fully developed ; only the head is still

covered with down.


At the age of ten days the young only require the warmth

of the old birds at night; but they no longer go into the nest;



* Dermestes lardarius. It is surprising that the hairy larva: of this pest should have

been relished—A. G. B.



