434 U.S. NATIONAL JVIUSEITM BULLETIN 237 paet i 



reported that, during the first few days after hatching, the female fed 

 the young about every 10 to 15 minutes, but near the end of the nestling 

 period feedings were about an horn- apart. For the first 7 or 8 days 

 the male fed the female on the nest and she fed the young ; he increased 

 his trips with food to twice an hour, and made even three or four trips 

 per hour toward evening. On the 7th or 8th day he began to feed the 

 young directly. After the 10th day, the male was not seen to feed the 

 female and she began to forage for herself and the young. 



The usual method of male feeding female when the young are small 

 has been reported from Berkeley, Calif., by T. L. Rodgers. The bird 

 on the nest hears ti-er, ti-er from the mate in another tree, and replies 

 ti-er. They call back and forth three or four to a dozen times, and 

 the food bearer flies to a position a few feet from the nest and utters 

 one or more plaintive pseee notes. Then, while both are silent, it 

 hops quietly toward the brooding bird. She flutters her wings and 

 begs and the feeder regurgitates. Rodgers (1937) states: "The feed- 

 ing process continued by the clasping of the bills of the two birds, the 

 upper and lower mandibles of one just closing the complete gape of the 

 other. Three or four such contacts were made, and, between each, 

 the bird doing the feeding gulped as if bringing more food into its 

 mouth. The bird then flew away, and the brooding bird sat quietly 

 for eight or ten seconds before proceeding to feed the young." 



This regurgitative feeding of the brooding female by the male was 

 observed at close range at Sioux City, Iowa, by Dales and Bennett 

 (1929), who pointed out that the process is a comparatively long one. 

 Their description of a feeding ends thus: ''Toward the end of the feed- 

 ing as the male withdrew his beak from the female's mouth a string of 

 saliva-like substance stretched between the two bills; this was imme- 

 diately sucked in by the female. There must have been considerable 

 of it, for there seemed to be a flow of it for nearly fifteen seconds. 

 Then the male flew away." 



The food-bearing male sometimes is accompanied by other siskins 

 who do not trespass in the small defended area around the nest. They 

 perch in the nest tree, or in nearby trees; they also accompany the male 

 when he departs, as several observers have noted. The female also 

 joins social groups. 



Weaver and West state that the young never were left unprotected 

 more than 1 1 minutes, that during the first week the female's usual 

 duration of absence was 3 minutes. She kept the nest clean by eating 

 all excreta for the first 7 or 8 days; later it became fouled because 

 neither parent removed the droppings. T. L. Rodgers (1937) ob- 

 served the eating of the droppings. He states that the nest was kept 

 clean during the first 8 days and, from the 9th day on, no droppings 

 were taken from the nest and they accumulated there. 



