12 PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



closer, and one time when I had seen the male dart into a 

 cranny of the drift pile and had followed him there in the hope 

 of finding the nest, she got to the nest without my seeing her. 

 I heard the young birds then for the first time, but she was out 

 and walking off some six feet from where I later found the nest 

 before I got my eye on her again. This was the only time the 

 young were fed in an hour and a half. Except for the one time 

 she fed them the female for all the ninety minutes never relin- 

 quished the worm she had for them, but the male three times 

 ate his. He would scold around close to his mate, the two often 

 walking the same log or stone, worm in mouth, hut after twenty 

 minutes or so the strain or temptation would become too great 

 and he would pound his worm tender on stone or twig and then 

 swallow it. He sang several times after so yielding, but he was 

 quickly away again and back with a worm in a few minutes. 

 Once he mounted singing in the air like an Ovenbird, ending 

 his upward rush by catching a flimsy, big-winged, greenish in- 

 sect, which he promptly swallowed on bis return to the ground. 

 But the restraint of the young seemed to me more wonderful 

 than that of the parents. Time after time in m}' search I was 

 almost touching them, but they were true to their instinct to 

 keep still. The parents, of course, were in no greater agitation 

 after I had found the nest than while I was hunting for it, for I 

 was as often near it then as now, when I could see it. I did not 

 disturb the young, but when I returned in the afternoon there 

 were but four birds in the nest. The next morning all were 

 gone. I found them less than a hundred yards up the smaller 

 stream hidden in a dense rhododendron thicket. There they 

 remained for three days longer and then I saw them no more, 

 or rather after that I could not identify any Louisiana Water 

 Thrushes I saw as this particular family. 



I met Water Thrushes along the stream on and off after that 

 until August (the young in the nest I found flew on June 25), 

 both Louisiana Water Thrushes and Northern Water Thrushes. 

 A month later (July 21) after I had been lazing about a half 

 hour on a large rock just below the nest, watching trout in the 

 stream and warblers in the hemlocks, a Louisiana Water Thrush 

 darted out of the brush just alongside of me, his departure 



