NORTHERN FLICKER 275 



Experiments show that to a nestlmg weighing 743 grains was given a break- 

 fast that weighed 7G grains, to one weighing 1,430 grains a dinner of 118 grains, 

 and to another that tipped the scales at 1,530 grains a supper of 103 grains. 

 Probably the weight of the average load is not far from one hundred 

 grains. * * * 



When the young were eighteen days old during a watch of four and 

 one-half hours twenty-five meals were given to five nestlings that wore dis- 

 tinguished marks. Three of these are positively known to have received five 

 meals apiece, and two received four apiece. * * * At this age the young 

 Flickers every hour partake of food to the amount of one-sixteenth of their 

 own weight, or in one day consume their full weight of food. 



She says that flickers are A'^ery solicitous to keep a clean nest; for 

 the first nine or ten days the parents eat the excrements, but after 

 that the dejecta are carried out in the tough white sacks in which they 

 are enclosed. If no sacks of excrement are found in the nest after 

 feeding, the parent solicits them; "this is done by biting the heel 

 joints sometimes, but more often the fleshy protuberance that bears 

 that budding promise of the tail." 



She says that the male "staid with the young every night until 

 they were three weeks old, brooding all of them until nearly two 

 weeks of age, when they began pressing their breasts against the side 

 of the nest, and he could cover the tails of two or three only, after 

 which for two or three nights he sat upon the bottom of the nest 

 apart from the young; then for four nights he hung upon the wall 

 of the nest near the hole ; thereafter he staid with them no more." 



Her records show that the young remained in the nest nearly or 

 quite four weeks, or from 25 to 28 days. During the last three or four 

 days nearly all of them lost weight; this may have been due to the 

 period of the heaviest feather growth, or because the parents may 

 have let up on the feeding to induce the young to leave the nest. 

 Miss Sherman's statements, as to the period of incubation and the 

 length of time that the young remain in the nest, are quite at variance 

 with statements made by others, but her observations were so care- 

 fully and thoroughly made under such favorable circumstances that 

 they are more convincing than less accurate observations of others. 



Some others have also described the method of feeding the young 

 by regurgitation in a manner that differs from that observed by 

 Miss Sherman. Mr. Brewster (1936), for example, says: 



Standing on the edge of the hole, the parent would select one — usually the 

 nearest, I thought — and bending down would drive his bill to its base into 

 the gaping mouth which instantly closed tightly around it, when the head 

 and bill of the parent was worked up and down with great rapidity for from 

 one to one and one-half seconds (timed with a stop watch), the young mean- 

 while holding on desperately and appai-ently never once losing its grasp, although 

 its poor little head was jerked up and down violently. The first, or entering 

 downward thrust of the parent's bill looked like a vicious stab, the bird ap- 

 parently striking with all its force and as if with the design of piercing his 

 offspring to the vitals. The subsequent up and down motion was invariably 



