Japanese Robins Nesting at Large. 269


ready to take to herself a second male and then a third one as

husbands, leaving them in their turn to incubate her eggs and

rear the young, it certainly seems to me that such birds should

be styled polyaudrous. Hubert D. Ast^ey.



JAPANESE ROBINS NESTING AT LARGE.



Mention has already been made, in an article upon my

birds at Benhain Park, of a pair of Japanese Robins having a

nest with eggs in a laurel bush in the garden. Japanese Robins

have, I believe, been turned out at other places, at Woburn for

instance, but whether after that event any nests have been found,

I cannot say.


I turned loose about sixty of these birds in March of this

year, and for at least six weeks the majority of them kept close

"to heel," resorting to the shrubs and bushes near the aviary,

and coming at all times of the day to feed from a dish placed in a

hawthorn tree. After that they commenced to disperse towards

the end of April, and several were seen about a mile off in a

garden.


One pair however built — that is — one pair only was dis-

covered building in a laurel bush of a loose hedge dividing the

garden proper from the woodland.


Three eggs were laid and after the hen bird had begun to

incubate them, a spinster bird came and for want of something

better to do — one may say for the want of a husband — deposited

two eggs in the nest.


I happened to take a peep one day because when passing I

saw the male bird in a tree above the nest, and on the edge of

the nest, or at any rate very close to it were two females. On

looking into the nest I saw five eggs, two of a very fresh colour

which were added after the lawful owner had commenced to

incubate her three.


These three eggs were duly hatched and I saw the three

young birds until they were ready to fly, beautiful healthy birds

of a uniform sage green colour above (I never saw their under-

pays) with the bills already half red, red as far as X. can

remember at the points, and duller at the bases.



