154



Mr. R. Phiujpps,



to be in the habit, after disposing of the first clutch, to lay

immediately a supplementary clutch of three in the same nest,

which is not used a third time. But, with me, these supplemen¬

tary young have seemed to exhibit a lack of robustness, and

certainly a lack of colour, the facial region not being dark, and

the breast patch only feebly represented by a faint smudge of

whity-brown—all pointing to exhaustion. On one occasion, I

came across a clutch of five.


As a rule, now that the birds know me so well, the females

sit closely ; but this does not always continue, at any rate in the

birdroom. One. thing they lack, like too many humans : they fail

to see the necessity for the cleaning of their living-room. In

their African forests, they got on very well without any old

woman coming along with mop and pail ; and they, or some of

them, resent the visit of the bird-woman, which they regard in

the light of an intrusion and an aspersion on their character.

Not always so, however. On one occasion, supposing that all the

birds were in the garden, I lifted down a log, and found in it


such a typical nest as already described. On peering down into


it, I paused, and might have exclaimed with R. B.—


“Wee, sleekit cowetin, timorous beastie,


O, what a panic ’s in tliy breastie !”


but my timorous beastie, instead of starting awa wi’ bickering

brattle, played ’possum as, with partially extended wings, she

concealed her treasures from my gaze ; but it was noticeable that

her head, extended down on the nest, was laid sideways, and that

one large dark eye was very wide-awake indeed. I gently re¬

placed the log, and she did not come out. This was the fledge¬

ling No. 2 referred to at the bottom of p. 34 of last November.


The same thing occurred this January with the cripple, who so

entirely disappeared that I feared she might be dead, but, on

examining her nest. I found her sitting complacently — and

neither did she fly. And down the aperture of a rather exposed

log I now sometimes catch a glimpse of a tail disappearing, like

that of a rabbit diving into its burrow, save for the absence of

the white scut.


The cripple has no mate; and, when there is but one male

to two females, the course of events does not always run quite



