326 Mrs. K. Drake—The Breeding of the Violet-eared Waxbills


birds ; they certainly must have been nearly three weeks then. I told

my husband what to do and left a huge supply of live ants’ cocoons,

also showing him where there were more to be found, then I went to the

station on my sad journey. A week after my young daughter came

home and took charge of my birds. I wrote and told her to watch the

Violet-ears carefully as they ought to be out of the nest. Not till

the 10th August did I hear from her that “ the young birds were sitting

in the bush, which, by the way, was considerably overgrown and needed

clipping badly The young must have been nearly five weeks old,

instead of just out of the nest; also my husband says he saw the young

birds eating spray millet with their parents. I then wrote my

daughter to remove the young in about two weeks’ time or earlier, not

later ; but the “ little daughter ” thought she knew best, or was too

engaged with her two young friends spending a week with her ! So

the next news was “ both birds found dead this a.m., the 28th August ”.

I think the birds lived 8 to 8J weeks. I was dreadfully disappointed

when I received the dead body, so plump and then showing that lovely

blue on the upper tail-coverts and the black beak was changing to red.


On the 10th August my daughter calculated their measurement as

3| inches from beak to tip of tail, the tail alone measuring 1J to If inches.

For weeks before I left, the parents seemed to live on seeding grass

and live ants’ cocoons, and later devouring the heads of mealworms,

evidently feeding their young on those three articles ; a little later

more Indian millet and spray millet and C.L.O. food was taken. When

I left, those foods also were hurriedly written down by me, to be given

three, four, or five times daily as I had been doing. The plumage of the

young birds was a light brown, with black tail, black eyes and beak,

feet greyish.


There is one more item I must not forget to mention. When I was

feeling inside the nest, there being three or more nests all close together,

I found the two birds in a nest with two openings, their heads at one

end and the tails sticking out at the other. First I thought it was the

hen still sitting, but both parents were flying frantically around.

Would the two openings be easier for the parents to slip in and out, or

was it because at that time the weather was extremely hot ? The other

nests I have since pulled down with eggs in, and one with dead chicks



