152 The Wilson Bulletin, No. 73-73. 



to brood. If none of these are lying in the nest when the pa- 

 rent enters it begins after the feeding to soHcit them. This is 

 done by biting the heel joints sometimes, but more often the 

 fleshy protuberance that bears that budding promise of the tail. 

 That this nagging is no gentle measure may be judged from 

 the way the nestling cries and tries to wriggle out of reach, for 

 the parent is not content with three or four bites, but frequent- 

 ly inflicts as many as a dozen on one bird before it turns its 

 attention to another. The victim of one parent's cleanly habit 

 may receive the attention of the other parent in a very few 

 minutes, and be worried until it yields a second excrement, then 

 soon fall under the blows of the first parent again. Such triple 

 importunities do occur, but not often. By such means the pa- 

 rents keep the nest scrupulously clean for three weeks. 



The fecal matter is enclosed in a tough white sac that will 

 withstand much rough handling without breaking. When the 

 young are from fifteen to eighteen days of age the weight of 

 these dejecta is the greatest. One of these weighed 146 grains, 

 from a nestling of 1666 grains, another of 156 grains from a 

 bird of 190S grains, and another of 207 grains from a bird of 

 1828 grains. Statistics of this period of their lives show that 

 each nestling is fed about once an hour, and the nest is cleaned 

 for it once in two hours. When fledgelings begin to move about 

 the enclosing sac is no longer formed. With the Flicker it 

 disappears gradually : from the time they commence to climl) 

 the excrements decrease m size to about thirty grains, and one 

 or two are dropped by each fledgling in an hour. The parents 

 struggle heroically with the new condition.?, but nature is 

 against them. By the time the young take possession of the 

 entrance holt they cease entering the nest at any tiivic. But 

 the tidiness of the parents does not extend to the ridchng of 

 the nest of the egg-shells which are rarely carried out on the 

 day of hatching; they may lie a week before they are taken 

 out, or are broken into tiny fragments. 



Until 1909 the only menace to young Flicker life was a 

 plague of lice. .An infested English Sparrows" nest had been 



