29 



Fig. 27. His children were clamoring to be fed, so loudly 

 that, in his excitement, father stood on one of them. 



Besides grubs and larvae^ the little ones were fed upon 

 many kinds of millers and sometimes upon cracked corn 

 that was picked up in the hen yard. Two weeks after the 

 eggs hatched, the young were nearly large enough to leave 

 the nest. They looked almost like their parents, the males 

 having glossy black crowns, and the females gray ones. 

 The five youngsters were arranged side by side on a small 

 limb and many views taken of the parents as they fed them. 

 Both parents never came to the branch at the same time, 

 though one would often stay in the apple tree and watch 

 while the other one was pushing food into the cavernous 

 mouths. The little birds were very tractable, not behaving 

 at all like the little chickadees. In fact they did not fly 

 from the branch at all, but they were inclined to clamber 

 along it so as to reach the trunk of the tree. 



