66 WILD LIFE IN THE TREE TOPS 



stand what was required, for she began to move her head and neck as though 

 she were about to eject a casting. Presently she disgorged a piece of meat 

 from her crop, and holding it in her beak, allowed the young ones to peck tiny 

 pieces from it. When they were at last satisfied, she stepped from the edge 

 of the nest where she had been standing, into the centre, and crouching down, 

 induced the young ones by ' hooking ' them towards her with her head and 

 neck, to take shelter under her breast feathers. 



Whilst she was brooding them her beautiful wings, which reached to some 

 distance beyond the tip of her tail, were almost half-open, with the primaries 

 (or long flight feathers) pointing slightly upwards. 



Having exposed all my plates, I climbed down the tree without disturbing 

 her, cycled back to the village where a fresh supply of plates was awaiting me, 

 refilled my dark-slides, cycled back to the wood, and actually chmbed up to 

 the camera without causing the Hobby to leave her family. She was facing 

 me as I climbed the tree, and I could see her bright eyes, white cheeks, and 

 black moustaches distinctly. And still she remained brooding; in fact she 

 seemed now to be so accustomed to my presence as to be quite unconcerned 

 about me. 



It occurred to me, as I waited by the camera and watched the little hawk, 

 that it would make an unusual photograph if I could ' snap her in mid-air,' 

 and so, opening the lens to its fullest aperture, and setting the focal-plane 

 shutter at one-thousandth of a second, I held the release in my right hand, 

 and endeavoured by waving my hat in my left to induce the Hobby to take 

 to the air. 



She took not the slightest notice ! 



I then tried shouting — in addition to the hat waving. StiU no notice ! 

 Finally I broke off a beech bough, and shouting all the while, slashed about 

 with it at any beech branches near by. 



The only result of this effort was that the Hobby calmly watched the 

 earthwards drifting of the leaves which I had broken off ! 



Since she evidently did not care to leave her charges — and as she seemed 

 to treat my antics with a superior contempt — I desisted ; and full of admiration 

 for such a splendid little creature, took yet another photo of her brooding her 

 young. At this moment — and it is strange how such things occur — ^the call 

 of the male sounded from the trees on my right. Whereupon she immediately 

 left the nest, and, silhouetted against the sky as she planed down to meet 

 him, made the very effect I had been hoping for ! 



I had not reset the shutter ! 



But at least I had this time a most perfect view of the Uttle male ; for 

 he sat on a bare branch some 20 feet from me, with a small bird that he had 

 ah-eady plucked in his talons. He really is the most perfect little thing. His 

 head seems to be jet black, with of course the white cheeks and sides, his breast 



