514 BULLETIN 179, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The following day he removed "both nest and eggs, putting them in 

 a prominent spot, only a few feet away from their original nesting 

 place." The birds were much excited, flying about and returning 

 again and again to the original spot; but, though the eggs were in 

 plain sight, they never found them ; evidently, it was the location and 

 not the nest that they recognized. These martins apparently raise 

 two broods in a season. 



Eggs. — The gray-breasted martin lays three to five eggs. These are 

 like purple martin's eggs, pure unmarked white, ovate, and with very 

 little if any gloss. The measurements of 4 eggs are 22.3 by 15.2, 22.2 

 by 15.0, 22.0 by 15.5, and 22.0 by 15.0 millimeters. 



Young. — Mr. Hartley says: "During the period of incubation, 

 which lasted from fifteen to sixteen days, the male showed much 

 solicitude for his mate. He sat for hours by her side near the nest 

 and chirped and twittered in low sweet tones as if striving to en- 

 liven the monotony of her somewhat irksome position. Several times 

 each day, though only for a few minutes, she took journeys in search 

 of food." 



Both parents were busy in feeding the young, which "went on all 

 day long, from early morning till late at night. * * * After 

 every third or fourth trip, one of the parents cleaned nest with its 

 bill, carrying away the excrement incased in its thin shiny sack, to 

 drop it at a safe distance from the house." 



The food of the young "consisted entirely of insects — flying ants, 

 termites, ant-lions and dragon-flies." Mr. Hartley continues: 



Sometimes a dragon-fly was brought of too large dimeusions to be easily 

 swallowed whole. Then the wings were severed, one by one, from the body, 

 which was well crushed by the bill of the parent. The youngster would seize 

 it fiercely and swallow it with incredible rapidity, undergoing terrible con- 

 tortions, gasping and choking for several minutes after it had gone down. 



The young birds were lined up at the edge of the beam, twenty-'two days 

 after hatching, ready to begin their trials of flight. They returned to their 

 nests for a few nights and then, having partly learned to care for themselves, 

 departed elsewhere to roost. * ♦ * 



The art of catching their meal did not come quite so easily as the first 

 flights. They had to be fed for a week or more after they were dodging 

 and darting about in the air, and some even clamored for food after their 

 parents were nesting again. * * * it gradually dawned upon them, as 

 time went on, that they might secure their food themselves, as well as from 

 their parents. But this came only after the elders had dropped one or two 

 insects which made the youngsters scramble to secure them before they 

 escaped. 



Plwmages. — The sequence of molts and plumages seems to be the 

 same as in the purple martin. According to Ridgway (1904) the 

 sexes are alike in the first year plumage, being "similar to the adult 

 female, but much duller in color, the upper parts dark grayish sooty 



