i66 Bird- Lore 



next time he had visited a garden down the hillside, for he brought one rasp- 

 berry in his bill and coughed up three more. 



The three young Grosbeaks left the nest the morning of July 6. They 

 were not able to fly more than a few feet, but they knew how to perch and 

 call for food. I never heard a more enticing dinner song. The minute a young- 

 ster's appetite was satisfied, he always took a nap. There was no worry on 

 his mind as to where the next bite was coming from. He just contracted into 

 a fluffy ball, and he didn't pause a second on the borderland. It was so simple. 

 His lids closed, and it was done. He slept soundly, too, for when I stroked the 

 feathers of one, he didn't wake, but, at the sound of the parents' wings, he 

 awoke as suddenly as he dropped asleep. 



I have watched a good many bird families, but I never saw 

 Home-Life the work divided as it seemed to be in the Grosbeak house- 

 hold. The first day I stayed about the nest, I noticed that the 

 father was feeding the children almost entirely, and whenever he brought a 

 mouthful, he hardly knew which one to feed first. The mother fed about 

 once an hour, while he fed every ten or fifteen minutes. This seemed rather 

 contrary to my understanding of bird ways. Generally the male is wilder 

 than his wife, and she has to take the responsibiUty of the home. The next 

 day I watched at the nest, conditions were the same, but I was surprised to 

 see that parental duties were just reversed. The mother was going and coming 

 continually with food, while the father sat about in the tree-tops, sang and 

 preened his feathers leisurely, only taking the trouble to hunt up one mouthful 

 for his bairns to every sixth or seventh the mother brought. To my surprise, 

 the third day I found the father was the busy bird again. Out of eighteen 

 plates exposed that day on the Grosbeak family, I got only five snaps at the 

 mother, and three of these were poor ones. The fourth day I watched, the 

 mother seemed to have charge of the feeding again, but she spent most of 

 her time trying to coax the bantlings to follow her off into the bushes. It 

 was hardly the father's day for getting the meals, but, on the whole, he fed 

 almost as much as the mother, otherwise the youngsters would not have 

 received their daily allowance. I have watched at some nests where the young 

 were cared for almost entirely by the mother, and I have seen others where 

 those duties were taken up largely by the father. Many times I have seen both 

 parents work side by side in rearing a family, but the Grosbeaks seemed to 

 have a way of dividing duties equally and alternating with days of rest and 

 labor. 



