BLACK PHOEBE 159 



splash in the water so nmch as do these. One of the first lessons taught the 

 young is the delight of a bath in an irrigation ditch ; to this wholesome recrea- 

 tion they are initiated when about five weeks old. 



* * * At first the feeding is done by regurgitation, but when five days 

 old the nestlings are fed on fresh insects. 



As soon as they are ready to fly the male takes entire care of them, leaving 

 the patient mother to repair the old nest and undertake the bringing up of a 

 second family. He teaches the young to catch food on the wing, jusr as the 

 Arkansas and Cassin kingbirds teach theirs, and as I believe all flycatchers 

 do, — by releasing a maimed insect in the air just in front of the hungry little 

 one, who, forgetting fear, instinctively darts out to catch it. 



The black phoebe chanced to be the object of a series of experiments 

 by Mr. and Mrs. Eric C. Kinsey (1935), the results of which, while 

 not necessarily applicable to this species alone, are of considerable 

 interest to students of behavior. A brood of fully feathered young 

 was substituted for a newly hatched brood, and the latter for a set 

 of fresh eggs. After a few minutes of uncertainty, one of the birds, 

 believed to be the male in each case, began feeding the young, which 

 soon appeared to have been accepted unreservedly. Again, according 

 to Mr. Kinsey — 



We shifted young several days old into a nest containing young on the 

 point of leaving. The latter brood was placed in the nest containing the eggs, 

 the eggs were placed in the nest which formerly contained the young several 

 days old. A watch was maintained, in turn, upon each nest with the following 

 results. The partly grown young were accepted in lieu of the older group, 

 the older group was accepted, after slight hesitation, by the adults with the 

 eggs ; however, the eggs were, so far as we could tell, never brooded by the pair 

 from which the half grown young were taken. AW of these nests were subse- 

 quently visited some three or four days later and all of the respective broods 

 of young were being cared for by their foster parents just as though they 

 were of their own hatching. 



For the safety of its nest and young the black phoebe evidently 

 relies solely upon the inaccessibility of its nesting site. Accordingly it 

 does not, like birds which practice concealment, endeavor to avoid 

 being seen near the nest, but on the contrary, may use the nearest 

 convenient perch as a base for its hunting activities. 



Plumages. — [Author's note: The sexes are alike in all plumages. 

 Young birds in ju venal plumage, in June and July, are much like the 

 adults in color pattern, but the darker parts are sootier; the feathers 

 of the lower back, hinder scapulars, rump, and upper tail coverts 

 are indistinctly tipped with pale brown ; the wing coverts are tipped 

 with cinnamon or light rusty; and the white of the abdomen is 

 suffused with brownish along the border. This plumage is worn but 

 a short time ; I have seen young birds molting the contour plumage, 

 but not the wings and tail, as early as July 25. In first winter 

 plumage, young birds can be distinguished from adults by the juvenal 

 wings, which are apparently retained during the first winter. Adults 



