1448 U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 23 7 part 3 



On June 25 between 4:37 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. she made 8 visits, 

 averaging 22 minutes between visits to the nest. She made 7 visits 

 between 11:00 a.m. and 12:10 p.m., averaging 11 minutes between 

 visits. The intervals between feedings became gradually shorter day 

 by day until by July 1 we noted 23 visits between 6:48 a.m. and 9:00 

 a.m., at average intervals of only 6 minutes. 



On July 2 between 6:40 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. we saw 11 visits at an 

 average interval of 7 minutes. At 2:35 p.m. the nest was empty. 

 Twice we saw the father with food on this day but we did not see him 

 take it to the nest. No relationship was discernible between the time 

 of day and the rate of feeding. On some days the mother made more 

 frequent visits to the nest near midday than early in the morning, as 

 on June 25, and on other days the reverse was true. On July 13 and 

 again on July 14 when the young were 12 days out of the nest we saw 

 the mother still carrying food (green larvae) to them. 



One reason for the long intervals between feedings in the early nest 

 life of the young was the necessity for the mother to spend a good 

 deal of time brooding because of the wet, cold weather. Also the 

 young had smaller food requirements at that time. As we could not 

 actually see her on the nest because of the dense growth of grasses, 

 wild flowers, and low shrubs that surrounded it, we could not make 

 any accurate determination of the amount of time spent brooding 

 the nestlings. It was not determined, either, how many young were 

 fed at each visit. These aspects of the life history remain to be de- 

 termined. 



The 1956 mother Lincoln's had a standard routine in her feeding 

 trips. She would leave the nest, with or without a fecal sac, and fly 

 to a spruce at the forest edge east of the nest. If she were carrying a 

 fecal sac, she would leave it on a horizontal branch of this spruce, fly 

 to a dead balsam south of the nest, then across the road to a meadow 

 near the river where she foraged. Then she would fly to a spruce 

 where the male usually sang across the road from the nest, then to a 

 raspberry patch between the spruce and the road, then very low across 

 the road to the nest. On June 25 these trips averaged 15 minutes, 

 varying from 5 to 29 minutes. She varied this routine somewhat in 

 the later stages of nest life, foraging fairly often in the foliage of the 

 spruces and balsams at the forest edge and sometimes on the forest 

 floor. 



The 1957 mother also had a definite route that she usually followed 

 in her comings and goings. This route included a slanting alder limb 

 on which she deposited the fecal sacs in a neat row. 



The young Lincoln's sparrows left the 1956 nest on July 2 and the 

 1957 nest on June 26. While we have no definite proof that two 

 broods are raised at Dorion, we have circumstantial evidence of it 



