18 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



* * * During the first hour the young were fed on an average of once in 

 one and a half minutes. * * * The mother brooded eighteen times, and 

 altogether for the space of one hour and twenty minutes. The nest was cleaned 

 seven times, and the nest and young were constantly inspected and picked all 

 over by both birds, although the female was the more scrupulous in her atten- 

 tions. * * * One of the birds while perched near by was seen to disgorge 

 the indigestible parts of its insect food, a common practice with flycatchers, 

 both old and young. * * * 



The last [young bird] to leave [the nest] flew easily two hundred feet down 

 the hillside on the thirteenth of July [i. e., when 18 days old]. 



Eaymond S. Deck (1934) speaks of the effect of sunlight on the 

 behavior of the young birds. He says: "The nestlings appeared to 

 respond to the sun in a quite sunflowerly way. Early in the morning 

 they lay in the nest facing the rising sun. As the morning wore on 

 and the sun moved south, the birds shifted their position to face 

 constantly toward it. During the hottest part of the day they lay 

 facing north-east, directly away from the sun, but when evening came 

 the birds were lying with their faces toward the sunset. On every 

 subsequent day when I visited the nest the young birds were facing 

 east in the morning and they always went to sleep at night facing 

 west," 



Early in July, here in New England, fledgling kingbirds are full- 

 grown, although their tails may be rather short. We may see a brood 

 of them perched not far apart on a wire, or on an exposed branch of 

 a tree, waiting for their parents to bring them food. They keep up 

 a frequently repeated, high, short, emphatic note, tzee^ snapping their 

 bills open and shut as they utter it, showing the bright orange color 

 of their throats, and when they see the old bird approaching, they lean 

 eagerly forward, and their voices become rough and harsh. At times 

 they fly out and meet the parent bird in the air, where, to judge from 

 their actions, food is transferred to them with a good deal of 

 chippering and fluttering. 



Burns (1915) gives the incubation period as 12 to 13 days, and 

 several other observers agree with him closely. 



Plumages. — [Author's note: The natal down that soon appears 

 on the otherwise naked nestling is "mouse gray." The young bird in 

 Juvenal plumage is much like the adult, but there is no orange crown 

 patch; the nape and rump are faintly edged with "cinnamon"; the 

 wing coverts are edged with pale buff, and the other paler edgings 

 of the wing feathers are pale buffy or yellowish white ; the white tips 

 of the tail feathers are tinged with brownish, especially the outer 

 ones ; there is a grayish band, tinged with buff, across the upper breast ; 

 and the two outer primaries are not attenuated as in the adult. 



A postjuvenal molt begins before the birds migrate, but the birds 

 go south before even the body molt is complete. Dr. D wight (1900) 



