152



Mr. R. Phillipps,



to the nearest bare perch, and thence to the outlet from the gar¬

den, from which point there is a straight fly to the bird room

window. Here it momentarily pauses to arrange the branchlet

in its beak, and here it is usually attacked by a rival builder, and

many a tug-of-war takes place; but our little bantam is as tena¬

cious of its stick as a bull-terrier would be and rarely loses it.

At any rate now, it is never balanced in the mouth as a dog or a

Bower-Bird carries a stick, but is grasped at the thick end—and

away our little friend hurries in a bee-line for its nest. The

stick, being held at the end, is dragged through quite a small

aperture into a log, the bird going backwards in tight places; and

in acting thus the Black-cheeked Lovebird exhibits a higher in¬

telligence even than such a cute bird as the Jackdaw, who, hold¬

ing a stick about the middle, will drop it over and over again,

and often abandon it, because it cannot manage to shove the stick

either crossways or sideways into the hole or crevice in which it

is building its nest.


With the Rosy species, I noticed that only the female

carried material. The Black-cheeked male sometimes helps his

mate, but to what extent he does so I am unable to determine.

Perhaps not very much, for I sometimes think that the female is

the larger and the more strongly built bird of the two, her heavy

work having developed her frame more fuliy, as is not improbable.


Since I last wrote, I have looked into several nests, some

built in upright logs with only a side entrance, but with a

revolving top for examination purposes. The sticks, placed

perpendicularty, were arranged all round the interior, leaning

inwards towards one another, so as to leave only a narrow hole

or funnel down the centre; and in the depths below could be

dimly seen the eggs all close together in a snug little nest of

bark. This is a common type of nest, especially where the

diameter of the log is small. One nest of the old mother, in a

large log with open top, was deserted before it had been com¬

pleted, and the engineering work by which the roof was to have

been supported exposed to view. The structure was being erected

on the corkscrew staircase principle, and was being strongly and

substantly builded. In another case, in a tall log of small diameter

with only a side entrance open, there was such a nest as the first



