on the breeding of occipital blue pies.



371



back, blue black ; secondaries tipped with white; tail two inches

long and white ; breast and underparts dirty white.


If by any chance he misses his footing in flying on to a perch

and finds himself hanging upside down he remains in that position

howling pitifully like a small child, the frenzied parents dancing

around and raising a din which can only be described as infernal.

I see I have lapsed into the historic present, whieh, I am told, is

bad form, but the early part of these notes dealt with past events

whereas I am now writing of the immediate present.


The young bird is now beginning to feed and I shall dis¬

continue this article until such time as I can report complete

success or failure.


On July 25th I got a good photo, of the chick, now four

weeks old, and I hope our Editor will see his way to allowing the

portrait to be reproduced seeing that I have wasted several plates

for his sake.


I have already mentioned that the old birds were in the habit

of hiding spare food in the various parts of the aviary; their latest

larder now appears to be the old nest. This last trick of theirs

caused me some annoyance, for, I argued if they use the nest

as a receptacle for food they are not likely to lay again as I had

expected and my utmost triumph for 1915 can only be one blue pie.


Towards the end of July the hen was incessantly calling' for

food and the male would first satisfy her wants before feeding the

young bird; I therefore had my suspicions and, on August 1st, in¬

spected the nest and there sure enough were two eggs.


On August 2nd I looked to see whether a third egg had been

laid and found the nest empty. I do not think the young bird would

have had the instinct or power to destroy these eggs, and can only

conclude that the male appropriated them to feed his wife and child.

I now begin to suspect that the same culprit was responsible for the

absence of eggs in the first clutch on June 12th and 13th, and also

for the disappearance of one egg during the incubation of that clutch.

As I was taking no risks I caught up and caged the youngster on

August 2nd. He immediately began to squawk for his parents, but

soon resigned himself to the fact that they were not there and that

he must forage for himself. Small garden worms provided a ready



