73 
Vil. 
THE WHITEHEAD. 
GIvEN the clue to a mystery, difficulties quickly 
unravel themselves. The particular mystery con- 
nected with the nidification of the Whitehead 
was the number of individuals in attendance 
upon a single nest. For a few hours indeed the 
solution seemed simple. It was easy to surmise 
that the newly emancipated brood of a first 
hatching were still—as happens in the case of 
the Fantail—importuning their parents for food ; 
that young freshly fledged Whitehead nestlings— 
the children of an earlier marriage—were still 
being given snacks and tit-bits by kindly parents 
even whilst engaged in the onerous duty of rearing 
a second family. 
This theory seemed, moreover, to be corroborated 
by the habit of wing-quivering during the trans- 
ference of supplies from one member of the little 
' clan to another—evidently an earlier brood were 
still soliciting their parents for food, evidently 
