on the Silver-cared Mesia.



39



into the aviary—and saw a sight which absolutely sickened me.

In the reserved aviary there still remain two upright posts, relics

of a long-disused gymnasium. Composedly and unconcernedly

there was sitting on the top of one of these posts a Burrowing

Owl. My old father Owl is an Owl of good parts, splendid after

mice; and there was not a bird in that aviary, including and

especially the Quails and Hemipodes, that he would not readily


strike and drag down into his Inferno - and he was down belozv


then. The aviculturist with insufficient accommodation lias

many difficulties to contend with which are unknown to his

brother in the country. I had thought that I had securefy

blocked up the Owls’ subway into the far aviary, but by clever

engineering they had got the better of me. The actual bird on

the post was the son and heir to the lower regions hereabouts, a

very enterprising youth but too young and inexperienced to do

much harm, and really he seemed to be the only one that had got

through. As I darted for the net I glanced at the Mesias’ nest,

and noticed that the mother was sitting as tight as glue. Poor

little man; hitherto (like other rackety boys, he had a way of

getting into difficulties) I had handled him so lovingly and

gently; and his amazement and consternation were great when I

whipped him up without ceremony, seized him anyhow, any¬

where, my one thought being to bundle him out of the aviary as

quickly as possible. A little later the male Mesia came to the

nest to feed, but the mother would not move, and did not

uncover her darling until quite a considerable time afterwards.


On August 23, a fine afternoon, noticing both birds off

the nest, I peeped in, and there were one young bird and one

egg, the latter more or less 011 the top of the bird. On the 26th

I peeped again, and took the egg, which was on the top of the

young one and must have been a great nuisance ; and yet the

parents had not sufficient gumption to remove it. This egg was

practically a counterpart of the one already described, but it was

a little longer, the spots were more red, and there were a few

very sparsely scattered over the egg generally.


I could not fail to notice how squat the young bird lay at

the bottom of the nest, and how it did not rise on the approach of

the feeding parent. Not infrequently I observed the mother



