Breeding of the Orchard Finch. 
175 
precaution of placing a piece of board a foot or so above 
till! lu'st, as the hen seldom brooded the young; we had twenty - 
I'oui- lioui's' heavy rain, and I think that the lives of tsvo 
of llic ehifks may thus have lo'eeu saved. On May 14lh one 
chick was picked up dead some yards from the nest. 
May I'Jtli, both young birds showing plentiful quills, 
eyes open. 
On May 21st (at eleven days) both chicks left the nest: 
they were not ready to do so, but I feel certain they were 
not dioturl)ed; they spent the first night under a Euonymus 
bush, covered with a large board, which I provided; the 
weather, fortunately, continued dry and all went well till the 
22nd, when the male bird was so spiteful that I caught up 
the whole family and transferred them to a b^mall vacant aviary, 
where feeding was at once continued. 
Up to this date the young had been fed entirely on in- 
sects, but I now with -held the live food a little and induced 
the hen to use a little soft-food (and possibly seed). The 
young birds were now of a pearl -grey colour, with still a good 
deal of down on the head; dark brown flights and tail, and 
brown speckling on breast. 
On May 25th both chicks could tly short distances 
and one roosted three feet from the ground. At, or about, 
this date, they developed the chestnut -ear patch which is seen 
in the adult female and which is absent in the male. 
May 30th. — Chicks strong on the wing and can feed. 
Male still refuses to use anything but insects; female, how- 
ever, gives soft food, greenfood, cake and seed. 
General colour of young at three weeks: ciown, nape^, 
mantle, back and breast ashy-grey, speckled with black; beak 
dark horn colour; legs llesh colour; flights and tail feathers 
daric brown with bulf -coloured edges — nuich like their female 
parent, but with no white on median wing-coverts. 
On June 1st the old birds were building again, this 
time in a dead thuja tree. A few days later the young being 
practically independent 1 caught them up and caged them for 
observation, and, as I thought, to encourage the parents to 
rear a second brood — I was quite wrong in my deductions, for 
the old birds have ceased nesting and look very bored most 
of the day, altliough the male bird still sings a good deal. 
