LINCOLN'S SPARROW 1447 



On June 23 the eyes of all were wade open. Their mouth linings 

 were now a very bright crimson, the cutting edge of the mandibles 

 yellowish. Pin feathers covered most of the skin and were chiefly 

 blackish. For fear of causing the fledglings to leave prematurely, 

 we did not handle them again. On June 25, when we looked into 

 the nest carefully at 5:30 p.m., they stretched their necks and gaped 

 to be fed. The gape now appeared bright yellow instead of creamy 

 white as earlier (June 21, above). 



The female did practically all of the feeding while the young were 

 in the nest according to our 1956 and 1957 observations. We were 

 never positive that either male actually delivered any food to the 

 young, although both were seen with food in their bills, and the 1957 

 male made several false starts as though to go to the nest. Perhaps he 

 was unnerved by our proximity, for he never quite made it while we 

 were watching. In both cases the female flew to and from the nest 

 with little hesitation and both broods left the nest successfully. That 

 the males do sometimes assist in brooding young is attested by the 

 observations of Maurice G. Street {in litt.) and Lawrence H. Walkin- 

 shaw {in litt.). We believe that the male of our 1957 pair looked 

 after two of the young after they left the nest, and that the female 

 looked after the other two, but their secretive habits made this too 

 difficult to ascertain. The color-banded female was noted near the 

 nest as were some young, while the male (as determined by his sing- 

 ing) spent most of his time about 100 yards west of the nest where the 

 two color-banded young were seen in mid July. 



As nothing appears to have been written about the feeding rhythm 

 of Lincoln's sparrow, we spent a good deal of time studying it in 1956. 

 Although w T e did not actually see the 1956 nest until Neil Atkinson 

 found it on June 24, we knew its approximate position several days 

 previously. On June 23 at 10:22 a.m. we saw the female fly from 

 beyond the creek to a spruce just across the road from her nest. She 

 had in her bill a tiny white moth and a half-inch green caterpillar. 

 These she took to the nest — the first feeding that we noticed. At 

 11 :10 she flew east from the nest into the forest edge and at 11 :40 we 

 saw her return with a green caterpillar in her bill. During a watch 

 of 1 hour and 55 minutes in midafternoon, we saw her make three 

 more feedings. This was an overcast day with show T ers in the morning 

 and rain in the afternoon. 



It was raining on the morning of June 24, but her rate of feeding 

 had already speeded up. In the early morning w r e saw her make 3 

 feedings in an hour and 5 minutes, and 3 more in the course of 50 

 minutes later in the morning. By midafternoon it had cleared and 

 turned warmer and we saw her make three more visits during a watch 

 of 1 hour and 15 minutes. 



