132 BULLETIN 17 9, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



days. She is not a close sitter, and often leaves the nest for hours, 

 especially during the heat of the day, but remains close by. The 

 3^oung are fed on the soft portions of insects, and leave the nest in 

 about two weeks, following the parents about for some time before 

 they are able to care for themselves." 



Professor Beal (1910) reports that a nest with four young "was ob- 

 served for eight and one-half hours and 119 feedings were noted, or 

 an average of 14 feedings per hour. Both parent birds took part in 

 the feeding until the female was unfortunately killed after the first 

 hour of feeding on the morning of June 27." During this hour, 

 from 5.15 to 6.15 a. m., there were 28 feedings. "At practically the 

 same hour the next morning, June 28, the male bird alone was able 

 to feed only 16 times. However, the 3'oung did well, and left the 

 nest that afternoon." He estimated that "each of the young birds 

 must have been fed about 49 times every day, or 196 insects in all," 



Mrs. Wheelock (1904) tells of the activities of a male in feeding a 

 brood of three young ; at first, while the young were small and naked, 

 he swallowed the insects, "and flew almost immediately to feed the 

 young by regurgitation, but as they grew older he carried raw food 

 to the nest. Often he alighted on the tree near the tiny doorway 

 and by pulling off the wings and legs prepared the soft parts of the 

 insect to be eaten by his nestlings. From the amount of food con- 

 sumed one would imagine nothing smaller than young owls in- 

 habitated the nursery. Twenty-two grasshoppers were taken in less 

 than half an hour, making more than seven apiece. The nestlings 

 being so small, this seems an appalling amount to be crammed into 

 those tiny throats ; but it evidently agreed with them, for they grew 

 at a surprising pace, and on the sixteenth day they were well pre- 

 pared for their debut." 



For several days after the young had left the nest, she watched the 

 female teaching the young to catch their own food. "She brought 

 a small butterfly and lit a little above and in front of one of the 

 young. She fluttered out toward him holding the insect in her bill, 

 then she released the latter so that it flew lamely down just in front 

 of the eager baby. * * * The lesson was repeated with variations 

 at intervals all day. Three days after this he was catching flies for 

 himself, although still following the mother about and begging with 

 quivering wings for the larger insects he saw her seize, and too 

 often getting them." 



Plumages. — The nestlings, which are hatched blind and naked, soon 

 become clothed in the juvenal plumage, which is darker above and 

 paler below than in the adults. Ridgway (1907) says that the 

 young are "essentially like adults, but pileum cinnamon-brown or 

 wood brown, rectrices cinnamon-rufous with a median streak of gray- 



