154 BULLETIN 196, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



worms from his fingers. In notes received from F. H. Kennard he 

 states that a hermit thrush was found in the middle of a meadow, 

 warm but dead. There was a large earthworm protruding from its 

 mouth which had choked it to death. 



Coit M. Coker (1931) reports an interesting experience with a 

 nesting pair of hermit thrushes iD the Allegheny foothills of western 

 New York. He states that in fully one-quarter of the trips made 

 to the nest with food both adults brought small salamanders of two 

 species, the Allegany and red-backed salamanders. During the hotter 

 parts of the day fewer salamanders were brought, and this Mr. Coker 

 attributed to the fact that the heat had driven the salamanders deeper 

 under cover. Others have reported salamanders comprising a part 

 of the food delivered to the young. While observing a nest of hermit 

 thrushes at Brunswick, Maine, I observed one of the adults deliver a 

 salamander about 2 inches in length to the bird at the nest. In 

 this case the salamander was not fed to the young, then five days old, 

 but she ate it herself. A similar case was observed at a nest at Douglas 

 Lake in northern Michigan, indicating that salamanders are by no 

 means a local menu. 



During the summer of 1941 I had an opportunity to observe the 

 food brought to the young throughout their life in the nest at Bruns- 

 wick, Maine. The food was invariably held in the beaks of the 

 adults so that it could be easily seen and often identified from the 

 blind placed within 5 feet of the nest. The food the first three days 

 consisted of small green larvae. During the first day the larvae were 

 minced in the beak of the adult before they were delivered, and at 

 other times the larvae if large would be divided in two by each of the 

 pair of birds grasping an end of the worm and pulling until it parted. 

 On several occasions larvae too large for the young to negotiate after 

 they were thrust into the extended mouths were swallowed by the 

 parent. After the third day winged insects, spiders, and ants were 

 added to the diet. On the seventh and eighth days large moths, grass- 

 hoppers, and beetles were fed to the young without any mincing or 

 tearing apart. During the many hours spent in the blind I did not 

 see fruit, berries, or vegetable matter delivered to the young, but 

 Henry R. Carey (1925) reports that fruit including blueberries and 

 wild cherries was delivered to the young of a nest observed in the 

 Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. 



Daniel E. Owen (1897) kept a young hermit thrush in captivity 

 from the time it left the nest on June 26 until July 31. During this 

 period of about five weeks he made interesting observations on its 

 behavior and especially of its food habits. Mr. Owen substituted 

 its usual food with raw beef cut into bits about one centimeter long 

 by half a centimeter wide. To facilitate swallowing the pieces of 



