NORTH AMERICAN MARSH BIRDS 49 



quite large, when they would reeat the disgorged food that I had made them 

 "cough up." In every case, however, the old bird fed from the throat, with the 

 exception of the moccasins. 



The old birds showed a great deal of intelligence in the feeding of the last 

 hatched chick. They would feed the oldest three in every case three or four 

 portions before they would ever notice the baby. This was no doubt due to 

 the fact that it was unable to assimilate the food in as coarse a stage of di- 

 gestion as its older brethern and apparently the parents knew this, because when 

 they started to feed the baby they would give him as many meals as he cared 

 to take and would never offer to give the older ones any more until another visit 

 from the feeding grounds. As the young grew it necessitated many visits to the 

 marshes for food because they were a hungry bunch all the time. I spent usu- 

 ally 8 to 10 hours a day in the bhnd photographing ^nd making notes and no 

 daj' during the four weeks after the young hatched did the parents make less 

 than six trips each with food for the young and they made on some days as high 

 as 11 trips each, the last ones being late, sometimes after dark. These last trips, 

 however, were usually for their own food, as only on three occasions, did I 

 ■ever see the old ones offer to feed the youngsters when returning late. 



After the end of the sixth week the young spent all their time flying down to 

 the edge of the island and wading and feeding in the shallow water, returning, 

 however, at night to roost on the old nest. The old ones, at this stage, will 

 feed them wherever the\^ can find them, and after the young are about 7 weeks 

 old they will leave with the parents to their feeding grounds and stay with them 

 returning at night to roost. At about this time all the ibis of both species are 

 usually able to fly and it is not long then when some day they all leave as sud- 

 denly and mysteriously as they came in. They have probably pretty well cleaned 

 up the hunting grounds of all the crayfish, etc., and move of necessity rather than 

 choice. It is at this period that they are found in the Northern States. At 

 what time they return south I am unable to state. 



Plumages. — The plumages and molts of the glossy ibis are appar- 

 ently similar to those of the white-faced species. 



Food. — Mr. Baynard (1913) made a careful study of the food of 

 the young glossy ibises; his itemized summary of 194 meals gives 

 the following totals: 412 cutworms, 1,964 grasshoppers, 1,391 cray- 

 fish, and 147 snakes. He says that the adults feed "principally on 

 crayfish, cutworms, grasshoppers, and other insects and young 

 moccasins," from which it would seem that they are very useful 

 birds. He figures it out in this way: 



Total of 3,914 vermin in 194 meals, or an average of 20 to each meal. As 

 the young would average seven meals apiece each day this would mean 28 meals, 

 and 20 vermin to the meal would make 560 vermin for a day's feed for the 

 young alone. The parents fed these young for about 50 days, making the total 

 of vermin destroyed by this one nest of birds about 28,000, and this is saying 

 nothing of what the old birds ate, which would be at least half of what the 

 youngsters devoured, making a total of 42,000 vermin eaten while rearing one 

 nest of young. When we stop to think that there were about 9,000 pairs 

 of ibis, including both the white and glossy on this lake in 191? that success- 

 fully reared nests of young, one can hardly conceive of the many millions of 

 noxious insects and vermin of all kinds destroyed. The vast amount of good to 

 any section of the country where this vast army of ibis nest can hardly be 

 reckoned in dollars. The cutworms and grasshoppers, we all know what great 



