CATBIRD 327 



times from the nestling last fed, 20 times from some other one and in 

 17 instances it was not determined. * * * XJp to the sixth day 

 the excreta was always devoured * * * and the remainder car- 

 ried away. The proportion carried away, increased to the end of the 

 study." 



Dr. Gabrielson observed the departure of one of the young as fol- 

 lows : "His departure was accomplished very simply. At about 11 :15 

 a. m. he climbed to the edge of the nest and attempted to jump to a 

 twig a short distance away. He fell short and tumbled to the ground 

 without injury. At this time the parents appeared and coaxed him off 

 into the thick underbrush in the ravine. The next morning both of 

 the others were gone from the nest." 



R. W. Shufeldt ( 1893) observed the details of the nesting of a pair 

 of catbirds that built their nest in a honeysuckle vine under the roof 

 of his veranda. The young remained in the nest 10 days, and he 

 records their departure as follows : 



At 6 : 45 p. m. on June 5, all the birds left the nest together. No one was near 

 it at the time, and there appeared to be no special disturbing cause. There was 

 threatening weather, to be sure, and low rumbling thunder at the time, but no 

 lightning nor loud reports. We were dining at that hour, and my first knowl- 

 edge of their having left the nest was my attention being called to a young one 

 near the open dining-room door, which led out on the veranda. All the young 

 were easily made prisoners on the ground, and I consigned them to a comfortable 

 cage, which I hung up under the roof close to the nest. Here the parents faith- 

 fully fed them through the cage wires until noon of June 8, at which time any 

 one of them could fly 50 or 60 feet with considerable vigor. Fearing that some- 

 thing might happen to them in the cage, at the time just mentioned I took them 

 all down to the lower end of my garden and let them go in the dense underbrush 

 that was overshadowed by numbers of second growth oaks and other trees. 



Mrs. Helen G. Whittle (1925) determined by banding that a pair 

 of catbirds remained mated for both the first and second broods of 

 the season of 1924. They both appeared the following May and again 

 reared their broods. S. E. Perkins, 3d (1928) banded a pair of cat- 

 birds on June 6, 1926, when they were nesting, and on July 11, 1926, 

 they were retrapped, when they were still mates at the second nest. 

 The following j^ear on June 24, 1927, the same pair were mated and 

 using a nest built within 5 feet of both 1926 nests. J. D. Black (1929) 

 states that five consecutive broods were raised in the same rosebush. 

 The first nest was built late in the summer of 1927. In 1928 the birds 

 built a few inches from the 1927 nest and reared two young catbirds. 

 As soon as the young left, a second nest almost touching the first was 

 built and four young were reared. The third nest of the year and the 

 fourth in the bush was built, and two birds again were raised. The 

 chain was broken with the flying of the first 1929 brood. The adults 

 built a second in another rosebush 20 feet away. As far as I know Mr. 

 Black did not band the birds, and one cannot be certain that the adults 



