on the Common Accentor.



95



enclosed this corner with some herring netting and managed to

drive the two pairs of birds inside this enclosure.


The Chingolos deserted their nest at once, and I rather

thought the Accentors had done likewise, so exceedingly shy

were they in their nesting operations. However, on examining

the nest after a fortnight’s interval I found one vigorous young¬

ster. I supplied plenty of live insect food, and one day I suc¬

ceeded by chance in seeing the hen administer a maggot. She

stood on the edge of the nest facing the youngster; the latter

opened his beak and his mother with one swift peck, so dexterous

that the eye could not follow it, popped the maggot far down his

throat.


A singular characteristic of this species, and one that I

have never seen mentioned, is that it has a tendency to become

bald on the crown. Every summer until the present year all my

Accentors have become quite bald for about a month or more

before the moult commenced. In that quaint little weekly, the

“ Country Side,” which I at one time used to read, a heterogeneous

series of questions used to be asked on all sorts of matters per¬

taining to popular natural history, and to these questions the

long-suffering Editor never failed to furnish a reply which, though

not perhaps always quite convincing, was invariably most in¬

genious. But one day there appeared a question which apparently

baffled the ingenuity even of Mr. E. Kay Robinson. It ran some¬

what as follows:—


Qu. Can you tell me why our old cock Blackbird has

suddenly become bald ?


Aits. I cannot suggest any cause for the occurrence.


I feel that, where the Editor of the “Country Side ” has

failed, it is not fitting for a humble member of the Avicultural

Society even to attempt a solution ; but, if I were to hazard a

conjecture, it would be that the cause has some connection with

the humidity of the atmosphere. As I said above, in 1904, 1905 and

1906 all my Accentors became bald towards the end of the summer

—even the young bird bred in the latter year ; but this season,

which as we all know has been phenomenally wet, none have lost

any feathers until the moult. Similarly a Virginian Cardinal

which I used to keep in the house always became bald in the hot



