120 Mr. W. E. Teschemaker,


Aug. 20. The young Flavis can fly a little. They are fed

like young Zebra Finches, standing beside the parent and twist-

ing their heads round ; not fluttering their wings.


Aug. 24. They are changing colour rapidly: the brown

on head and back is much lighter, nearly inouse-colour, but

every feather has a darker stripe along the shaft as though the

colour faded from the outer web first. Tails square ended and

brown. Breast getting somewhat buff. At a little distance they

now look somewhat buff.


Aug. 25. The young Flavis flying well. They are now

almost buff: the brown has faded away completely, except a little

on primaries : heads rather streaky ; in other respects they look

rather like fawn Bengalese.


Aug. 26. They are now all buff except a patch (light

brown) on back of neck and some primaries. Head and cheeks

streaky.


Sept. 4. Feeding themselves and calling " pink."


Sept. 13 — Oct. 4. No notes (away from home).


Oct. 5. Breasts a much lighter buff; beaks now the same

colour as adults ; one singing.


Oct. 11. Some black feathers have begun to show in the

under tail coverts ; and some whitish and streaky feathers on

their heads and cheeks.


Oct. 18. The young Flavis are now moulting and casting

a lot of feathers.


Oct. 25. One youngster through the moult. The chief

change is in the colour of the wings : the scapulars, primaries,

and some secondaries are now a rich brown umber. They now

show the yellow rump, but the colour does not extend so far up

the back as in adults. Some black feathers in lower part of

thighs.


Dec. 10. They are now exactly like the adults except the

under tail-coverts which are black in patches only, and a few

secondaries still light brown. They pass most of their time in

gnawing and devouring the shrubs.


So much for the young Yellow-rumps. The parents began

to sit again on two eggs on Sept. 5. I should not have allowed

them to do so if I had not been most anxious to ascertain the



