AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 155 



It was a few days later, one of the little ones that had been so ruthlessly 

 stolen from home, came into my possession. He was a pretty little fellow, 

 neatly dressed in a suit of grey with white trimmings. Above each eye was 

 a bunch of long wavy down, the last remnants of the dress of infancy. I 

 put him in a cage with three tiers of perches. At first he sat spraddle 

 legged on the floor. Then he spied the lower perch and successfully reached 

 it. He wasn't satisfied with that. He wanted one a little higher. He seem- 

 ed uncertain that he could reach it and mave several moves as if to jump, be- 

 fore he finally did so. A few minutes later I heard a lusty squeak and on 

 going to the cage, found him on the top perch with his large yellow mouth 

 agape. I knew what that meant. I found a spider or two, and under a log 

 some crickets and beetles. He ate them greedily, striving to swallow my 

 finger along with them. When his hunger had thus been appeased, he set- 

 tled down on his perch and began serenely preening his feathers. I thought 

 what I had given him would be sufficient to satisfy his hunger for at least 

 an hour or two. In this I was disappointed, for within five minutes that 

 squeak again. I made an excursion to a nearby stubblefiield where I found 

 grasshoppers abundant. I was soon back with enough to last him half an 

 hour. 



Henceforth a good j)art of my time was spent in getting his food, which 

 consisted of grasshoppers, spiders, beetles and worms of various kinds. He 

 ate all indiscriminately, and it was indeed gratifying to see how he grew. 

 Each day I gave him the free range of the back porch which was screened in 

 to exclude flies. Within a week he could fly the whole length of the porch. 

 To prolong his flight he would fly round in as wide a circle as his confine- 

 ment would allow. Within a few days after I got him he showed unmistak- 

 able signs that he wanted a bath. I placed a saucer of water at his disposal, 

 and he seemed to understand what it was for. He hopped to it and inspect- 

 ed it closely, opening and closing his wings in an absent-minded way. Then 

 he went through all the motions of taking a bath, when in reality he was not 

 within three inches of the dish. He soon learned how to bathe. At first he 

 entered the dish very gingerly, and splashed very lightly, but as the days 

 passed he over came his fear and would literally wallow in the saucer as 

 long as there was a drop of water left in it. And at such times, when he 

 was soaking wet, he was as forlorn a looking creature as I ever saw. He was 

 too wet to fly, and would run to and fro on tiptoes, flapping his wings rapid- 

 ly until nearly dry, then he would leave the floor, lighting on the crown of 

 a hat that hung high on the wall. He sat here and completed his toilet, 

 dressing his feathers with his bill till they were thoroughly dry. He be- 

 gan early to develop his vocal mechanism. We had to be very quiet to hear 

 him. At first his song was unintelligible, vague, mere whisperings, but 



