j6 2 [Proc. B.N.F.C, 



The activities of birds are immense ; life fevers through their 

 veins, their temperature being from 2 deg. to T4 deg. Fahr. higher 

 than that of Mammals. To support this vitality a relatively 

 enormous amount of food is required. Mr. Oliver G. Pike puts 

 this in a striking and amusing manner. "If we had only the 

 appetite of a bird, we should each consume, in proportion to the 

 quantity of food they eat, the following : — for breakfast, t dozen 

 eggs, a full-sized loaf of bread, and 20 pork sausages. Lunch 

 would consist of 6 pounds of steak, half a loaf of bread, followed 

 by 2 legs of mutton and a fair sized plum pudding. For afternoon 

 tea we should just have a fruit cake weighing about a pound, and 

 our dinner would consist of 2 pounds of fish, a whole fowl, 4 

 pounds of roast beef, with 10 potatoes, and 2 large cabbages, 

 followed by a pudding weighing 6 pounds, and 4 pounds of fruit. 

 Not a bad day's work for one person. Yet this, weight for weight, 

 and bulk for bulk, is less in proportion than some birds will con- 

 sume in one day." 



Even a greater amount of food is needed by the young, for 

 while in the nest the rate of growth is very remarkable. You see 

 on the screen the first week in the life of a young blackbird, 

 photographed each day at the same hour. The marvellous growth 

 here shewn must mean the consumption of a large amount of food. 

 In the case of another species, the brood was carefully weighed 

 each day, and the increase noted. During the first day the 

 average gain in weight of the nestlings was 48 per cent., and in six 

 days their weight was very nearly three times what it was. Such 

 growth entailed the constant attendance of the parents, who visited 

 the nest at intervals of from two to five minutes from daybreak to 

 dark. Or take the case of a pair of Blue Tits, which a patient 

 lady watched for one whole day. They frequently visited their 

 seven or eight young six times in the space of five minutes, each 

 time bringing two or three small green caterpillars. They kept 

 this up for 16 hours, so that this one pair of Tits destroyed over 



