on Breeding Hybrid Ouzels.



303



On the 7th when I first supplied food, I only heard one

rather feeble voice from the nest; and later in the day when I

threw some worms into the aviary, the cock bird swallowed them

instead of breaking them up and taking them to the young ; I

therefore concluded that matters had gone wrong, and got a pair

of steps to enable me to examine the nest. Still, the fact that

both birds flew at me in fury, loudly chack-chacking the while,

led me to hope that my fears might not be realized.


When I touched the young none of them moved; I lifted

out the nearest bird and found it dead but plump and pink,

showing no discoloration ; as I put my hand on the second it

gave a scream and sprang out of the nest, and I was only just in

time to save it an ugly fall: its father was in such a rage that he

flew straight at my face, buffeting me with his wings ; the third

bird was evidently dead, or it would have been sure to leap out

when its brother did so : I replaced him in the nest and came

away.


Examining the young bird which I had removed, I con¬

cluded that it was about eight days old, the feather of the flights

just emerging from the sheaths, and only the centre of the

abdomen being still uncovered : in appearance it much resembled

a young Blackbird at this age, excepting that the bill was

noticeably longer. The living youngster, which was rather

larger than the two others, and therefore probably a cock, would

not remain in the nest after its scare ; and in the evening I found

it on the bottom ledge in a corner of the aviary. I tried to-

persuade it to settle down in a sieve filled with hay, but it would

not remain there, but flopped away to the other end of the aviary

and, as it screamed and brought both of its parents about my

ears every time I picked it up, I soon desisted. By some means

the parents managed to get it up into a tree before night, and by

the 9th it spent much of its time on a branch.


At the age of ten days (as I believe) the young bird was

distinctly browner, less inclined to be dusky on the back than a

young cock of Merula merula at the same age; in fact a young

lady who saw it declared that it was “exactly like a young

thrush,” but it is possible that she may not have been familiar

with the nestling plumage of the Blackbird.



