ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK 41 



there were also a few spiders and a few berries. Out of 382 feedings, 

 283 were by the female. Observations by Francis H. Allen (1916) 

 were somewhat different from the above. 



H. Roy Ivor sent Taber detailed observations on the rearing 

 of young birds by adults in semicaptivity. The two young were out 

 of the shell and dry at 8 o'clock the morning of July 5, 1938. The 

 adults divided their attentions; when one was obtaining food, the 

 other covered the yomig. The male sang while brooding as he had 

 while incubating. The adult on the nest anticipated the return of 

 the other by giving a vocal signal and rising slightly. On July 6 a 

 blue jay took one of the young birds and the third egg; the female 

 abandoned the remaining chick, and the male took over. When 

 feeding he inserted one end of a worm in the young bird's mouth and 

 made sure the nestling's throat muscles had a grip before letting go 

 the other end. He broke up large worms except for the skin, and 

 sometimes withdrew the worm from the nestling's mouth several 

 times before becoming satisfied it could swallow the food. He spent 

 the night on the nest. During the first day the excreta from the young 

 bird were quite stringy and not in a sac; the adult male was careful 

 to pull them out as they were being excreted. He sometimes, but 

 not always, ate the droppings, and on the 14th began to be less 

 careful in housecleaning. On the 14th the peculiar notes of the 

 fledgling replaced the nestling's chip. Fear, first observed on the 

 14th, became pronounced on the 16th. The following day, the 17th, 

 the fledgling got out of the nest, but not until July 20 could it fly 

 fairly well. Its body was not fully grown at 19 days. Droppings 

 were still in a sac on July 25, and the adult removed them from under 

 the branch on which the fledgling perched. On July 29 the fledgling 

 had its first bath, and on this date, too, the female, which Ivor had 

 many times attempted to introduce to the nestling, fed the fledged 

 bird, her first such behavior. On July 31 the fledgling was the size 

 of the parents. The father then started to show it how to break 

 open sunflower seeds. Perching beside his offspring on a branch, 

 he cracked a seed, broke the kernel into pieces, and fed it to the young 

 bird. He then gave it a whole kernel. Next, he pretended to give 

 the fledgling an uncracked whole seed, but held on to it and in due 

 time cracked the seed and fed the young bird. By August 5 irrita- 

 bility on the part of the parent, which had been increasing, resulted 

 in his jamming food into the mouth of the young bird, pecking its 

 bill, and driving it away. 



Ivor also writes Taber of an instance in which two males had taken 

 over the rearing of four and three chicks, respectively, after their 

 mates started building second nests. The clamor arising from the 

 nest of fom- dm-ing a prolonged absence of the parent proved too 



