Identifier: muttonbirdsother00guth (find matches)
Title:Male Yellow Breasted Tit, in Mutton birds and other birds
Year: 1914 (1910s)
Authors: Guthrie-Smith, H. (Herbert), 1861-1940
Subjects: Birds -- New Zealand
Publisher: Christchurch, N.Z. : Whitcombe and Tombs
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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n this extremityof tenderness and pain, that wrung from her thelittle stuttering song, the first singing I had everheard from a female Tit of either breed. Shesang, and once again sang, as she passed overthem, as if imploring pardon for apparentcoldness and neglect, and entreating their loveand forgiveness. It was on this nest, and immediately after itsdiscovery, that I was furnished with anotherinstance of that obedience, on which thelives of young things depend in the wilds. Ithappened that, owing to conditions of locality,an unusually long time had been spent in theerection of a rough stage, this unavoidable delayentailing an additionally long deprivation tothe nestlings of their food supply. Theappetites, moreover, of the young birds musthave been whetted to the sharpest edge by thesight of food carried in the parental bills, pastthem and over them. At last, however, the stagewas complete, the camera legs straddled out, thenest in focus, and the cock standing over his PLATE LXXVI.
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Male Yellow Breasted Tit. AND OTHER BIRDS 191 famished and eager faiiiil\^ with a long greencaterpillar, some crushed daddy-long-legs, andquite a bill full of other dainties. The necks ofthe brood were elongated to the utmost, andshivering with eagerness, their throats wereopen like yellow crocus blooms in sun, when someslight stir of my coat caught the parents eye.Instantty he signalled, Down, Jenkins—several species, perhaps all, can sing and whistlewith ))ills apparently crammed with food—andthe long necks shrunk and the blossoming throatsfaded, and thus, deathly still, though famishing,crouched the brood until again called to life.Unless fully considered, the marvel of thisobedience can hardly be appreciated, for theappetites of little birds cannot be gauged bythose of the young of man, or of the higheranimals. Babies do not require food for manyhours after birth and then at long intervals; butnestlings of some breeds feed within a very fewminutes of hatching, and this differe

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