346 TJ. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



frenzy. Those young birds which forsook the nest at the age of 19 

 days could not yet fly, but remained climbing around among the 

 broad bases of the coconut fronds for 2 or 3 days longer. The full 

 nestling period was from 20 to 23 days. At the time of quitting the 

 nest the young birds of both sexes resembled the adult females, but 

 their breasts were more grayish, their irides brown instead of bright 

 yellow as in the adults, and their faces and foreheads still bare of 

 feathers. 



The destruction, during the course of cleaning the pasture below 

 the house, of one of the isolated nests built 10 feet above the ground 

 in an Inga tree, gave me the opportunity to make an experiment. 

 Although the nest tree had been cut down, the two vigorous week-old 

 nestlings were picked up unhurt from the ground. I placed one of 

 these in a nest in a coconut palm which already held three 10-day-old 

 nestlings; it was attended by their mother along with her own off- 

 spring. The other fallen nestling was deposited in another nest in 

 the same palm tree, from which the original occupant had vanished 

 a few days earlier. Apparently none of the four females which at 

 the time were building or attending nestlings in this tree, nor any of 

 the other grackles which frequented it, took notice of the foundling, 

 for it died of neglect after a day or two. Each female appears to 

 attend strictly to her own nest, and to ignore the nest and offspring 

 of her neighbors. 



Soon after leaving the nest, the young grackles began to follow 

 their mother afield as she foraged, before long going even as far as 

 the river, where they perched on a banana leaf arching above the 

 bank while awaiting her return from her search along the shore; or 

 else they pursued her along the sandy margin of the stream, begging 

 for food with vibrating wings. In May and June, the young birds 

 became an increasingly conspicuous element in the flock — for despite 

 their numerous failures, the sanates succeeded by persistent efforts 

 in rearing a goodly number of offspring — and the youngsters' half- 

 pleading, half-imperious call, witit witit, mingled with the whistles 

 and clucks of the older birds. The young males continued to solicit 

 food from mothers larger than themselves. Once I watched two 

 youngsters, a clarinero and a sanate, alternately beg for and receive 

 food from their mother and help themselves to the ripe banana which 

 she was eating. Sometimes, as the young birds waited for food to 

 be brought them in the hibiscus hedge beneath the coconut trees, 

 they picked off the leaves and bright red flowers, or pecked at the un- 

 opened buds, seeming to try to find food for themselves before they 

 could distinguish what was edible. 



By the first week of July the nesting season was drawing to a close. 



