214 



THE OOLOGIST 



lowed me to put my finger on her 

 while sitting on the nest, but the male 

 never allowed such liberties. 



When the young were eight days 

 old and were becoming feathered out 

 nicely, a rat found the happy home 

 and destroyed them. This happened 

 on May 3 and on May 5th I noticed 

 the male was beginning to build again 

 in another can that I had put up in 

 the porch on top the plate. In this 

 nest the male did nearly all the build- 

 ing and was five days doing the job. 

 Singing all the time, he did not seem 

 to worry about the loss of his family, 

 the female was different, however, and 

 sang very little. Ten days after this 

 nest was finished I found the first egg 

 laid and when three were laid, another 

 rat cr mcu'^e destroyed them. This 

 pair then immediately started a nest 

 in a length of old stove pipe that I 

 had nailed in a horizontal position in 

 a tree in front of the house and about 

 ten yards awav. They completed this 

 nest in two days and laid one egg, the 

 next day I noticed that this nest had 

 been torn out and the egg destroyed, 

 probably the work of a pair of festive 

 jays. After all these set backs this 

 pair wert further out in the woods 

 and succeeded in raising a brood after 

 all. I found their nest when they 

 had four eggs in and that was the 

 number she raised. The female did 

 not come up to the house much after 

 she moved to the woods, but the male 

 was on his job every morning early at 

 the peach tie? and many times during 

 the day wrvld crme in the house look- 

 ing for spiders. 



On my farm there were about six 

 difierert priis ct these little songsters, 

 but each ] air seemed to keep to its 

 own range and there was very little 

 quarreling among them. One pair 

 built in my packing house and built 

 the nest in a day. By the watch this 

 pair made 14 trii)s with building ma- 

 terial in 10 minutes. They had a short 



fly though, as the floor was strewn 

 with wisps of hay. This nest was built 

 in a box nailed to the wall and was 

 used for keeping stencils in and was 

 a large affair and this nest was the 

 largest of all I noted during the year, 

 but also it was the most loosely con- 

 structed and was made almost entire- 

 ly of hay with the exception of the 

 lining. Upon completing this nest the 

 pair disappeared for over a week, 

 when one day I noticed a new nest be- 

 ing made in the engine room in a box 

 on the wall and have no doubt that 

 this was the same pair. A rat de- 

 stroyed this set after it had been set 

 on for seven days. About two weeks 

 later I happened to go to the nest in 

 the packing house and found an egg 

 Ihat was identical with the set in the 

 engine room, so, no doubt, it was the 

 same pair. This set was also destrcy- 

 ed by rats, after five eggs had been 

 laid. 



In thirty-two sets that were allowed 

 to hatch, the incubation laste<l for 

 fourteen days and the young, in every 

 case, left the nest in fourteen days. 

 The male always helped in the matter 

 of feeding and after the young left 

 the nest, the female generally let him 

 do most of the work of feedirg and 

 instructing the young to fly. 



A friend in town had a pair to build 

 in a hanging basket of flowers just 

 outside the front door, and they would 

 help the old birds in the matter of 

 feeding by getting the mud houses of 

 the mud daubers, and break them 

 open and lay them on the ground. The 

 old wren would take out the ycung 

 grubs and feed them to the young and 

 would herself eat the spiders that 

 were confined in these mud houses. 



When the young were nearly full 

 fledged, however, taey would feed 

 them som.e of the spiders. 



The last nest I noticed was in my 

 house and on August 10th, held a 

 set of five that had been set on for a 



