Nesting of the Black-headed Siskin. 
7 
cock Siskin had to work harder than ever and at times looked 
a little weary and .seemed to be asking himself if matrimony 
was really worth while. On the 24th, the young were fairly 
well feathered, green spots— the terminals of the secondary 
CO vei-ts— showing on the wings. On the 25th the dark tips of 
the primaries and primary coverts were unsheathed, the crown, 
the dorsal tract and a tract behind and parallel to the tibia 
were well covered; the centre of the chest w^as greenish, 
and the centre of abdomen yellow. 
Every day it l^ecame more obvious that matters were 
not going well with the Siskin family. The female took no part 
whatever in feeding the .young but from dawn to sunset called 
peevishly and incessantly to the male for food. On the 27th 
came the climax. The female left the nest and perched mop- 
ing and evidently seriously ill in an a^iple tree; the nest, on 
examination proved to be a seething mass of red mite, and 
one of the young was dead. I removed it, applied Kea ting's 
powder liberally, and replaced the surviving yougster. On 
the following day, however, the female died, and was found 
to be covered with red mite from the beak to the endt 
of the tail. The youngster was given a dust -bath in Keating, 
and then placed under a hen Canary, which was feeding a 
brood of four. Under these conditions it improved and showed 
some interesting and distinctive traits. One of these I par- 
ticularly noted. When alarmed it would throw itself forward 
spread its wings to their fullest extent and, so to speak, 
flatten itself out. We all know how that strange freak, the 
collector, " sets uj} " an entomological specimen by running 
a pin through the body of his victim, spreading the wings 
and flattening them on a board; this is exactly what 
the young Siskin looked like when he assumed this re- 
markable pose. Though I think that we have all got " Mimi- 
cry " on the brain now-a-days and fancy that we detect pro- 
tective resemblance in every department of Nature's workshop, 
nevertheless the resemblance of the rounded wings, when 
extended in this way, with their bright and contrasted scheme 
of colouring, to those of some tropical butterfly was so re- 
markable as to impress 'itself on the most casual observer. I 
will not venture any suggestion as to either the cause or effect 
of this curious pose but will content myself with pointing 
