SKYLAKK,

looking round and calling in vain she advanced to the nest. The next time she arrived with a supply of food she did not trouble to look for her wandering one, but flew straight to her nest. She did not appear to receive the slightest assistance from her mate, although I must say he sang very blithely over our heads on several occasions during the afternoon. One curious thing I noticed among the young larks was that whilst their parent was absent searching for food they were constantly stretching themselves and gaping. We

made a number of photographic studies, one of which is herewith reproduced, and is, we believe, the first mechanical picture ever secured of a perfectly wild lark at her nest.

Seeing a pair of starlings entering and leaving a hole in which they had their nest, containing a brood of young ones, in the thatch of a hayrick, we borrowed an old tumbril from the farmer upon whose property we happened to be at the time, and placing our artificial rubbish-heap inside it, wheeled it close up to the side of the rick, as shown on page 15. My brother got inside his hiding-place with his camera, and standing on the wheel nearest to the rick, I placed my hand where the birds alighted, and he focussed it and awaited their return. It was not long before one of them came back with a supply of food. I expected a long, wary, screeching reconnoitre of the greatly altered aspect of affairs; for a starling, although a bold bird, is an extremely cautious one, and will not go to her nest for hours together if she suspects anything wrong. But apparently our device was such a natural bit of farmyard property, that they never suspected it to contain anything in the shape of a man and a camera, and went about their business in the most unconcerned fashion. The male took his share of the work right manfully in this instance, and, of course, gave us an opportunity of making a photograph of him as well as of his companion.

Just a fortnight after the brood of young starlings left the hole in the rick, I saw a pair of house-sparrows examining it as if they meant housekeeping, and a month afterwards they too were busy going in and out with food for a hungry family. Although I be- FEMALE STARLING. lieve, from observation, that in most instances the male starlings help the females to feed their young, such is not always the case.

I watched a female collecting " leather-jackets " on a newly-mown lawn last July for a long while, and as she seemed exceedingly busy, even for such a hard-working bird, I timed her efforts upon my watch. She had her nest under the slates of a house abutting on the lawn, and in consequence had not far to fly with the food she secured. During the first ten minutes I had her under observation, she fed her young ones four times in five minutes, but during the next ten she only averaged twice in five minutes. This was not,

however, due to any slackening of her efforts, but to the fact that she had been over the same ground several times before, and the supply was naturally growing limited. Sometimes she flew up to her nest with only one grub in her bill, but generally two and occasionally even three. As some of the " leather-jackets " took a good deal of persuading to leave their hiding-places in the hard-baked earth, the practical bird, upon discovering the whereabouts of a fresh one whilst she had a captive already in her possession, put the prisoner it lie theredown upon the ground close by and let until she had extracted her new find.

Gardeners are sometimes disposed to be hard on starlings. It ..,,., may be interesting to some of them to know that I watched that m-dividual bird kill sixteen " leather- " jackets in ten minutes. As she did not appear to receive the slightest help from her male companion, I thought I would render her some little assistance, so, MALE STAKL1XG.

j g WILD LIFE AT HOME.

procuring a spade, dug a handful of worms from my own garden, and whilst the industrious bird was away at her nest, flung them over on to that part of the lawn she was working. When she came back she seemed a bit staggered. Such an array of luscious food where but a moment ago she had left absolutely nothing! The thing seemed above her comprehension. However, she soon fell oft' at onceto, and "jointing" two large worms flew to her chicks with them and returned directly for another supply. After this had gone on briskly for a while, the bird, for the satisfying of her own hunger, levied toll on the supply of worms I procured for her

offspring. The feeding habits of this species differ very widely from those of the blackbird. It is extremely interesting to watch birds searching for food; I often do it by the hour together. A blackbird hops about listening as well as looking for worms, but a starling rushes round just as if dear life and the welfare of the whole universe depended upon her individual energies. According to my timed observation, the latter feed their young ones twice as often as the former. The different members of the tit family are, by reason of their boldness, easy and extremely interesting objects of study, and despite their quick movements, may be photographed in a good light with rapid plates and swift up-to-date apparatus.

LONG-TAILED TIT AND NEST.

8o WILD LIFE AT HOME.

During last May we found three bottle-tits' nests in the same hedgerow within a couple of hundred yards of each other. We visited them on several occasions late in the evening, and always found the male birds sharing the cosy little feather-lined nests.

As soon as they had young ones we went out and fixed up our artificial tree-trunk in front of one of them. When all was ready for action I retired to a distance and watched proceedings through my field-glasses. It was not very long fliesbefore the female turned up with a number of in her bill. She hopped about rather nervously at first, but gradually drawing nearer to her little house of webs and lichen, entered it and stayed there. By-and-by the male came along with a supply of food, which he gave to his consort as she sat covering their family, but whether she in her turn passed it on to the hungry youngsters or riot neither my brother nor I could make out, although we both saw from our respective quarters the supplies repeatedly passed in.

After a number of plates had been exposed in a light that was far too poor to make us sanguine about the results, the photographer signalled to me that he wished to be released. Upon walking up, I put my finger into the nest and the tit sat perfectly still until I withdrew it, when she came out in the most unconcerned fashion and began to hop about amongst the branches of a tree overhead.

BIRDS. 8r

As evidence of the excellent character of the hiding provided by our artificial tree-trunk, I was pleased to note, while I sat waiting, a turtle-dove

MALE CHAFFINCH AT

NEST CONTAINING

YOUNG.

alight within a few yards of it and begin to call, and a cunning old carrion-crow leisurely flap his way close past without having his suspicions aroused in the slightest degree.

Chaffinches have on several occasions alighted

upon it, and one day a robin actually rattled off his song from the top of our rubbish-heap whilst my brother was inside waiting for a bird of another species to visit its nest.

Our first attempt at photographing the bottle-tits outside their nest did not yield a satisfactory result, so we waited until the young ones were older and both the parent birds were busily engaged in feeding them, when the picture on page 79 was obtained. Although chaffinches are bold birds and sit closely on their nests, they are by no means easy to photograph without the help of some sort of hiding appliance. to photograph We had tried many many times a brooding female, and had often come within an ace of success, but at the crucial moment either the bird's courage gave out and she flew away, or some tantalising accident, such as the slipping of a twig, carefully bent out of the line of sight, scared her off with an angry " spink, spink, spink." Our new hiding appliances, however, speedily changed all this, and had we only had the time we could have made as many studies as we chose. The illustration on page 81 of a male which had just fed his chicks was taken in rather a dark place.

A closer study of the domestic life of birds by means of our hiding appliances has resulted in the discovery of the fact that the males of many species share family cares to a far greater extent

than I ever supposed. One day I erected our rubbish-heap close to a chaffinch's nest containing a brood of five half-grown young ones, and took up my station inside. The male bird fed the chicks four times for the female's once, and when he had distributed his harvest of caterpillars most impartially amongst his clamorous sons and daughters, he attended to the sanitary requirements of his little establishment.

Young fledglings often afford a great deal of sport when stalked along a hedge-side with the camera, and, as a rule, yield surprisingly pretty pictures when photographed; but, at the same time, they have a very provoking habit of suddenly remembering an engagement elsewhere, just when they have been focussed in the sweetest of all possible attitudes. The picture on page 84, representing a young red-backed shrike on a spray of wild rose, was made soon after it had left its nest. The young of the species always proclaim their presence by their harsh notes when being fed, and their male parent is very bold in defending them. One day I was amusing myself by imitating a young rabbit squealing, as if it had been caught by an enemy, and watching the antics of the alarmed mother of a litter kick the ground with her hind feet, when I became aware of a bird darting at my head. It was a male red-backed shrike, close to the nest and almost fully-fledged young ones of which I

had wandered. He doubtless thought that I was interfering with his children, and like a plucky father endeavoured to drive me away. His method

of attack was similar to that of most other birds bold enough to try to frighten human beings away from the precincts of their off-springnamely, from behind. Although I do not think he ever actually touched my cap, he swooped down from a tree in my rear, and passing over my head with an air-cutting whirr, rose into another tree in front of me. Even such birds as swallows, martins, and swifts may sometimes be photographed at rest. During our stay in Unst last June a fishing-smack came into Baltasound one morning with the swift represented in the picture opposite on board. The poor bird had alighted in the boat's rigging when eleven miles out at sea during the night, and clung so tenaciously to the rope that when

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