370



Dr. Maurice Amsler,



most of us are familiar, the locality and existence of these larders

were not forgotten.


On July 14th the body feathers of the chick were well grown

and of a rusty grey colour : quills beginning to split; the white

patch on the head, which gives these birds the prefix “occipital,”

was well marked, but, in the case of the young bird, the white began

at the base of the bill not at the occiput; a few days later dark

feathers made their appearance on the forehead (see photo.) and the

patch more nearly resembled the colour arrangement in the adult

bird. The tail was a mere stump of quills with a tip of white

feathers; bill flesh pink.


July 20th found our friend sitting on the edge of the nest

surveying the world and looking very wise but a trifle tired ; in fact

at one time I was rather shocked to find him thus with his head

hanging straight down, I thought him dying, but he was in reality

tired out and asleep. Later on I tried to get a snapshot of him,

and in so doing disturbed him and caused him to fly the whole

length of his 18ft. world. I again approached him with my camera

and got a photograph which was considerably underexposed. During

this time it must not be imagined that the parents were sitting

quietly taking stock of the situation, far from it; I was several

times attacked, especially by the male, who would fly over and give

my hat (it was not my best hat) a good push with his feet as he

passed. Later, when I was leaning down trying to snap the young¬

ster on the ground, one of the parents deliberately perched on my

back and pecked me; needless to say all this interference and the

terrible din raised by the parents did not conduce to good photo¬

graphy.


It is said that two or three hundred of these birds will follow

and mob a leopard. I am sorry for the poor leopard, one pair of pies

can almost deafen you in about five minutes. You will say that all

this chatter is perhaps interesting, but that the “Avicultural Maga¬

zine ” takes no stock of the Felidae beyond the destruction of Fehs

domesticus, and I will therefore return to our young blue pie. At

the age of three weeks, when he left the nest, he was very suggestive

of a young magpie. Bill and legs flesh colour, head and bib grey

black, the latter considerably less in extent than in the parents ;



