12 Bird -Lore 



tempting meal-worms was laid in. Sometimes the female, slipping away from 

 her task for a brief interval, would help herself to a worm or two, but by far 

 the greater number were devoured by the male, who watched keenly for 

 every issuance of the rations. 



On June 13 the young birds hatched, and with that event began the 

 busy season. Tirelessly the mother came and went. She seemed too 

 absorbed to think of eating, and when she did help herself to meal-worms, 

 it was with an eat-to-live air that contrasted strongly with the evident 

 relish of the male. Upon her fell the chief burden of providing food and of 

 keeping both nest and young ones clean. But the male was no idle father. 

 That nest was the apple of his eye, and he guarded it as such. Moreover, he 

 assisted in the feeding to no inconsiderable degree. 



Besides meal-worms, the young were fed on the usual Bluebird diet of 

 spiders, crickets, grasshoppers, cutworms and other insects, large and 

 small. The male spent much of his time on the edge of the shelf. The 

 arrival of the female with a load of provender was announced by a short, 

 subdued, yet decisive chep, that seemed to ask for a clear track to the nest, 

 a wish that had only to be uttered to be granted by the male. Each visit 

 of the parent birds with food precipitated from the young a shower of notes 

 that sounded like chee -ee-ee-ee, chee -ee-ee-ee, chee -ee-ee-ee, and which 

 did not cease until after the old ones had gone away. 



Frequently a parent would be observed standing on the nest -porch, 

 looking attentively inside, — an attitude, no doubt, of nest-inspection. Notes 

 on this side of household duties are, unfortunately, almost lacking, but in the 

 few cases that were observed the female removed the excretal sacs to a 

 distance, the large white bundle plainly visible in her bill as far as the eye 

 could follow, some three hundred feet. 



During these days of preparation of the young for flight, the old birds 

 grew accustomed to their unusual location and came and went freely, paying 

 no attention to ordinary sounds and movements in the room, even permit- 

 ting a person to sit near the open window. It was during this time that 

 most of the photographs were taken, the camera being set up within three 

 feet of the window-sill. 



June 27, fourteen days after the hatching of the eggs, the most pre- 

 cocious of this precocious brood flew. This was toward sundown. No 

 more of the brood came out that night, and the parent birds, absorbed in 

 the care of their first-flown, let the rest go supperless to bed. 



The next day was a quiet one. Occasionally the old birds came with 

 food. At 4:25 in the afternoon the second aspirant scrambled up to the 

 nest-hole, where, clinging to the outer rim, it whistled loud and clear the 

 Bluebird call- note — tur-wee — which the parent answered from the 

 tree. This was the first utterance of this call, and later observation made it 

 clear that it precedes immediately departure from the nest, and may even 



