JAY AND YOUNG.

After about half an hours waiting- the old bird came back, and hopping about suspiciously from branch to branch and tree to tree for a while, and spending her time between listening and uttering her harsh unmusical alarm note, she alighted on the ground and made a very leisurely survey of the bower in which the photographer knelt, almost afraid to breathe. He could hear her hopping right round because of the noise made by her feet upon the carpet of dead leaves which was spread everywhere.

It was quite an hour before she ventured to visit her nest, and when she did there was no sign of food in her bill. Her five young ones instantly shot up their heads and opened their abnormally wide mouths upon her approach, and she pushed her l)ill right into their throats and fed them by regurgitation, just like a pigeon. Each nestling was fed in turn before the old bird took her departure. We spent a whole day at the place, and suffered the most terrible tortures from the gnats which simply swarmed and filled our little bower with their diabolical music. When the Jay was away for food we killed them until our hands and faces were thickly besmeared with their re-nuiins, but the destruction of one seemed only to invite the spiteful vengeance of a dozen others. Still my brother would not give in, and when the bird approached her nest he set his teeth, and shivered under the exquisite })unishment rather than make the slightest movement which the sharp-eyed creature would be likely to detect. Several times she either saw something that frightened her, or fancied she did so, for she set u]) a loud terrified squawking, and suddenly took her de})arture when she was within a yard of her nest.

So ill-conditioned was the })liicc for taking

PIED WAGTAIL'S NEST AND YOUNG IN OLD PAIL.

PIED WAGTAIL GOING INTO INVERTED OLD PAIL TO FEED HER YOUNG.

even a decent pliotog-rapli of a thing so full of life and movement as a bird, and so anxious was mv l)rotlier not to miss a favourable "Icani of light throug'h the surrounding- tree tops during the presence of the Jay at her nest, that in spite of the gnats he would not leave his post, and I had to go in search of some lunch for him. He succeeded in making a series of studies, a reproduction of one of which is given on p. 225. It is the most dearly bought picture in this book, for in addition to the torture endured in })rocuring it, my brother was unable to sleep the two following nights from the recurrent irritation in his hands and face, which swelled to such an alarming extent that he was only able to look out of two little holes in the latter, and was quite unable to close the fingers of the former. Our family doctor pronounced his case to be a bad attack of blood poisoning, but was unable to ascribe it entirely to the stings of the insects. We found two other Jays' nests near the same place, containing eggs, and in an open part of the wood fell in with a male Moorhen, which had by a remarkal)le accident so entangled himself amongst some dead branches carelessly thrown into a ])ond as to be quite unable to move until we released him, when he flew away in a great hurry.

Pied Wagtails sometimes have a fan(;y for odd situations in which to build their nests. Last spring a friend of ours discovered one inside an old ])ail, which was lying upside down in a corner of his garden. It contained young ones, and the })arent birds, which both assisted in feeding them, entcn-ed and left through a hole in the bottom of tlu3 disused vessel. ]\Iy l)rot]u'r succeeded in taking a ])hotograpli of one of tliciii in the act of entei'ing with

a supply of food, and afterwards made a study of the nest and }'oung ones with the pail turned over on its side. The foreshortening- of its interior and the holes through its bottom give it a somewhat peculiar appearance in the picture.

It would be interesting to know how long a time elapses between fledgelings leaving the nest and

^^ '^%|#

YOUNG THRUSHES.

being abandoned to their own resources by their parents. I am inclined to think that, whilst in the case of birds producing only one brood in a season they stick together for months, in that of those producing two or three they are left to take care of themselves in a few days.

Pretty sights of Thrushes, Robins, Shrikes, and other birds feeding their young ones may often be seen during a ramble by wood and hedgerow. The above picture of a pair of young Thrushes

waiting to be fed was ])liotograpliecI just as tlicir mother arrived with a W(^riu and called to them from an adjoining oak tree. The bird on the left was looking up at lier at tlio moment the plate was exposed. Sometimes a male bird will rear a brood of young ones by himself after an accident has deprived him of the help of his companion. I remember the case of a Red-backed Shrike accomplishing this feat last summer in an old orchard close to my home.

SPIDER'S WEB COVERED WITH HOAR FROST.

CHAPTER VI.

r, I R D S SLEEP. WHERE

I was a boy, nothing connected withWHEN the life of birds puzzled me so greatly as the question of where they slept. I often tried to watch them to roost, but with little success. That birds sleep very lightly, and are easily awakened, is a fact I have proved over and over again by casting a small pebble in the air in such a way that it would fall vertically into a large evergreen where I knew a number of House Sparrows were roosting. Although the stone made very little more noise in its descent through the leaves than a big rain-drop would have done, it instantly sent several birds out in a great flutter of alarm. I have also noticed how exceedingly difhcult it is to approach Golden or Green Plovers at night-time, especially on peaty soil, which easily transmits the slightest vibrations, and thus, I am persuaded, assists to a very considerable extent in awakening sleeping birds.

To many people it is a profound puzzle how a slumbering bird retains its balance on a slender twig or branch that is liable to be swayed more or less violently to and fro by a strong breeze. The answer is very simple. Birds only roost on such branches as they can grip firmly with their toes and claws, and in sitting down upon them the bending of the knee joints so contracts the muscles

;

of the toes as practically to lock the bird to its perch. Ill fact, a hircl cannot leave its roost until it has strai;t»'litened. its legs, and thereby relaxed the muscles of its toes. I have conducted a series of experiments on this subject by watching Thrushes, Sjiarrows, and Robins go to sleep on wire perches too fine and smooth for them to gras]) properly. They could retain their balance with ease whilst conscious, luit directly they went to sleep they lost their equilibrium, and slipping backwards or forwards awoke with a start and either re-established themselves or fluttered to the ground. A Rook can perch upon a telegraph wire, but he could not go to sleep on it, liccause it is not thick enough for him to grasp with sufficient unconscious firmness. Another question which I have often heard asked a frail little bird keeps itself warm is—How during an intensely cold winter's night in an ojien hedge or wind-swept shrub V The answer is, that when it tucks its head under its shoulder plumage and goes to sleep, it puffs its feathers out until they almost stand at right angles to its body. This ingenious method of disposing them entangles the air amongst the down growing round the l)ase of each shaft, and, as air is a bad conductor of heat, this helps to prevent an undue escape of warmth from the little creature's body.

It is an exceedingly difh(;ult matter to examine wild birds in this condition, as the instant they awake their feathers assume their normal position however, 1 have succeeded in taking a leisurely look at a few, including a Common Wren, which lo(jked for all the world like a tiny l)all of feathers as it sat on the outside edge of a large hole made by Sparrows in the thatch of an old cart-shed.

I do not tliiiik for a inonieiit that Ijirds die from cold, even in the severest of winters, if their food supply does not fail them. After the terribly hard weather cx})erieneed during- the first months of 1895 I had a liook shown to me hanging- l)y its claws in a tree, where it was supposed to have been frozen to death; l)ut I knew of a numljer of well-

0^ ^' %0

THRUSH ON SLEEPir^G-PERCH.

{I'hotogiaphril hy Miiijneslvia Flusliliglit.)

fed Sparrows that slept in an equally, if not more exposed, situation all through the winter, without taking the slightest harm, also several l)arn-door fowls that roosted every night in an old apple-tree in j^erfect safety, with the exception of the chanticleer, which had some of the serrations of a somewhat large single comb frostbitten. Further, I never yet met with a Blackbird, Thrush, or Kedwing dead in such a situation as to warrant me in supposing that it had been frozen to death whilst asleep, although I have found lots of

skeletons in Puffin burrows and Raljbit holes, whither they had crept to die.

Birds that sleep in trees and shrubs always do so with their heads to the wind during a breezy night; and such as patronise holes in thatches and the sides of ricks shun those infested with rats or mice. Blackbirds roost in evergreens and thick hedgerows, and when disturbed invariably flutter out without uttering a sound of any kind, but nearly always pipe their familiar alarm note upon re-alighting. On the night of June 22nd, 1897, I was in the neighbourhood of Barnet Gate, where there was a particularly large Jubilee bonfire and display of pyrotechnics, and I heard several Carrion Crows and I^lackbirds, which had been disturbed by the flare and din, cry out in whiging their way from the vicinity. Thrushes sleep in similar situations to Blackbirds, but are a trifle more partial to evergreens, and when disturbed they often make a peculiar snapping noise with their bills. The picture on p. 238 represents a Thrush at roost in a hedgerow. It was photographed by a magnesium flash at nine o'clock at night in January, 1896, and is, so far as we know, the first photographic study of a wild bird on its natural roost ever made.

Page 27 of 44