312 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the incubatory period. The statement which I have made in my 

 Observational Diary of the former bird, that the female alone 

 incubates is indeed much too wide and general, but the male 

 never came to the nest while there were eggs in it, during the 

 time that I watched the birds, and, as I say, I was unseen and 

 unthought of whilst I watched them. On the other hand, he 

 kept flying into the plantation with a cry, in response to which 

 the female flew off the nest to him, and on some, if not all, of 

 these occasions, she received from him booty, which he brought 

 her. It was much, if not just, the same with these Merlins. The 

 male did, indeed, do some part of the incubation, but it was a very 

 small part, and on two occasions certainly, and once again pro- 

 bably, the female showed an impatience of his presence at the 

 nest — on the first of these, indeed, she refused to come off it, and 

 drove him from the ledge. Also, just as with the female Sparrow- 

 Hawk, she flew out, at intervals, as an accustomed thing, to his 

 cry, and it was then evident that she expected to get something 

 — booty, namely — from him, which, on at least two occasions, 

 she did get. In these meetings, the male did not come to or 

 near the nest, at all, but went down, with the female, on the 

 hillside, right away from it, or waited for her there. On the few 

 occasions when he did come to it, it was a quite distinct thing, 

 either after the meeting or without any meeting at all of this 

 special kind. Nothing could be clearer than this, as will be 

 seen by a reference to the text. What I have called the home- 

 gorge, I may remark, ran down the whole slope of the 

 mountain, till it ceased to be one — a very long way, that is to 

 say, beyond what anyone would consider the vicinity of the nest, 

 though the birds seemed to claim the whole of it. The male 

 Sparrow Hawk, though he never once, whilst I watched, came 

 to the nest during the incubatory period, yet in his similar 

 visits, either with, or rousing expectations of booty, came in- 

 cidentally much nearer to it, for he seemed to consider it his 

 duty to enter the plantation, which was a quite small one.* 

 In these meetings, therefore, of the male and incubating 

 female, in the cry uttered by both, and the evident hope of 

 the latter, on hearing it, which is sometimes realized and 



:;: Of course, in this case, the purview of the female did not extend to 

 the country beyond the plantation. 



