470 GAME BIRDS. WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



every leaf. Statue-like I stood, half-concealed by cedar boughs. They 

 fluttered all about me, lighting on my head and shoulders; gently I caught 

 two in my hands and carefully concealed them under my blanket. 



I now began to realize they were mating, preparatory to nesting. It 

 was an event which I had long hoped to witness; so I sat down and carefully 

 watched their movements, amid the greatest tumult. I tried to understand 

 their strange language, and why they all chatted in concert. In the course 

 of the day the great on-moving mass passed by me, but the trees were still 

 filled with them sitting in pairs in convenient crotches of the limbs, now 

 and then gently fluttering their half-spread wings and uttering to their 

 mates those strange, bell-like wooing notes which I had mistaken for the 

 ringing of bells in the distance. 



On the third day after, this chattering ceased and all were busy carry- 

 ing sticks with which they were building nests in the same crotches of the 

 limbs they had occupied in pairs the day before. On the morning of the 

 fourth day their nests were finished and eggs laid. The hen birds occupied 

 the nests in the morning, while the male birds went out into the surround- 

 ing country to feed, returning about 10 o'clock, taking the nests, while the 

 hens went out to feed, returning about 3 o'clock. Again changing nests, 

 the male birds went out the second time to feed, returning at sundown. 

 The same routine was pursued each day until the young ones were hatched 

 and nearly half grown, at which time all the parent birds left the brooding 

 grounds about daylight. On the morning of the eleventh day, after the 

 eggs were laid, I found the nesting grounds strewn with egg shells, convinc- 

 ing me that the young were hatched. In thirteen days more the parent 

 birds left their young to shift for themselves, flying to the east about sixty 

 miles, when they again nested. The female lays but one egg during the 

 same nesting. 



Both sexes secrete in their crops milk or curd with which they feed 

 their young, until they are nearly ready to fly, when they stuff them with 

 mast and such other raw material as they themselves eat, until their crops 

 exceed their bodies in size, giving to them an appearance of two birds with 

 one head. Within two days after the stuffing they become a mass of fat — 

 "a squab." At this period the parent bird drives them from the nests to 

 take care of themselves, while they fly off within a day or two, sometimes 

 hundreds of miles, and again nest. 



It has been well established that these birds look after and take care of 

 all orphan squabs whose parents have been killed or are missing. These 

 birds are long-lived, having been known to live twenty-five years caged. 

 When food is abundant they nest each month in the year. 



It seems improbable, however, that they bred in winter. 

 The nesting usually occupied four to five weeks. The female, 

 when sitting, never left the nest until the flight of males 

 returned, when she slipped away, just as her mate reached the 



