WHITHETHROAT 
One egg is laid every twenty-four hours, either during 
the night or the very early hours of the morning, until the 
full number, which is usually five, is completed. Incubation 
lasts from ten to fifteen days. 
When the young are hatched the parents become very 
nervous, and this is especially the case if the nest is 
approached or any attempt made to watch their movements. 
I have sometimes found it necessary to wait for fully two 
hours before they would commence to feed their offspring. 
Owing to this nervousness they perch upon the branches 
close at hand, and if they notice any movement either retire 
with a flirt of the tail into the foliage, flutter close to and 
round one’s head or even expostulate openly, swelling out 
their throats and uttering their quiet alarm note. 
The parent birds share the duties of tending the young, 
and both exhibit very strongly all the peculiar characteristics 
of the species. The male is perhaps the more timid, although 
the difference, if any, is slight. They creep up to the 
nest and settle upon the side of it, but even then their 
courage often fails, and after remaining motionless for a few 
seconds quietly retire. When in this hesitating mood they 
often swallow the food they are holding, tired, perhaps, of 
carrying it about for so long, yet hurriedly going in search 
of more, and in a few moments returning with a fresh supply. 
It seems almost as if this unnatural check to the proper 
carrying out of their routine of instinctive activities made 
them uneasy; nevertheless, like the hive-bee, they appear 
to be compelled to follow an invariable order of work. 
During the first week after the young are hatched the greater 
part of the parents’ time is passed in brooding. They bring. 
a small supply of food, and one of them then settles down 
upon the nest for a short period, varying from ten to twenty 
minutes, and when thus brooding the female will leave the 
nest in response to a note from the male, or the reverse 
may be the case. The young are not fed in any succession, 
one particular bird, in fact, often receiving food from both 
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