532 



LAND BIRDS 



nest with food averaged ten minutes apart. The longest 

 period of fasting was twenty-three minutes, and the short- 

 est one and one-half minutes. Usually one can tell what 

 food a nestling has swallowed by looking closely at its 

 distended crop, as the contents are visible through the 



nearly transparent skin. But 

 these young Tanagers were 

 twenty feet from the ground in 

 a slender fir, and I could not 

 examine them ; consequently I 

 could judge of the menu 

 only by the foraging of the 

 adult, and by what I saw 

 sticking out of his bill. 

 When he darted out into 

 the air and back again in fly- 

 catcher fashion, I knew he was 

 after a small insect. When he 

 came from the bushes with a 

 bunch on either side of his beak, 

 I was sure he had picked up a 

 caterpillar ; when wings of gauzy 

 texture projected on one side of 

 the mandibles and a long black 

 body on the other, I made a Yankee guess that a dragon- 

 fly had been captured for breakfast. 



As soon as the nestlings were able to fly they came 

 down to the cover of the lower brush and fed in com- 

 pany with their parents. We knew this by the anxiety 

 of the adults and by their efforts to lead us away from 



607. Louisiana Tanager. 



" A dragonfly had been cap- 

 tured for breakfast.'''' 



