Home Life 



knocked and bruised into a pulpy condition that is 

 sure to cause no colic. 



Even the birds which provide for their babies 

 the same food that they themselves enjoy — which is 

 by far the greater number — usually take the trouble 

 to give it special preparation for the tender stomachs. 

 Having no pepsin, lime-water or sterilizer at com- 

 mand, what could be a simpler way to prepare a 

 perfectly digestible baby food, than to first swallow 

 and digest it themselves, then pump it down the 

 throats of offspring not yet old enough to be 

 squeamish ? In this way the young flickers, for 

 example, are fed, but, as far as is known, no other 

 woodpeckers. The flicker, or high-hole, collects 

 a square meal of perhaps two or three thousand ants 

 which partially digest while she is on her way 

 home. Her approach is sure to summon the 

 hungriest, or possibly the greediest youngster to 

 the entrance of the tree cavity. Thrusting her bill 

 far down his gaping throat, she uses force enough 

 to impale him. One confidently expects the point 

 to appear somewhere through the baby's back. 

 With the same staccato motion used when drum- 

 ming on a tree, she jerks her bill up and down so 

 violently that the fledgling has all he can possibly 

 do to hold on during the second or two it takes to 

 pump part of the contents of her stomach into his. 

 Yet the next baby pushes and scrambles for position 

 when the first one slips back satisfied, just as if he 

 anticipated a truly delightful experience ! By this 

 same method — regurgitation — are humming-birds, 

 purple finches, and many other birds ted, doubtless 

 many more than we suppose, for it is only a few 



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