VALUE OF BIRDS TU MAX. 



55 



have both the time and patience to watch the feeding of jouno- 

 birds for an entire day. Dr. C. M. Weed and Mr. W. Y. 

 Fiske, however, liave accomplished this feat. They watched 

 the nest of a Chipping Sparrow from 3.40 a.m. to 7.49 p.m. 

 on June 2i, 1898. Tlie vahiable record of these observations 



Fig. 25. — Chipping Sparruw leeding young. 



shows tliat these two birds, having only three young in the 

 nest, visited it at least one hundred and eighty-two times 

 during that day ; and Dr. Weed says that they made almost 

 two hundred tri[fs, although some of the trips evidently were 

 made to furnish grit for grinding the food. The birds were 

 busy from daylight to dark, with no long intermission. The 

 food, so far as identified, consisted largely of caterpillars. 

 Crickets and crane Hies were seen, and it was believed that 

 a great variety of insect food was brought. ^ 



A committee on useful liirds, sele(;ted from the Pennsyl- 

 vania State Board of Agriculture, reported that an observer 

 had watched the nest of a ^lair of Martins for sixteen hours, 

 from 4 A.M. until 8 p.m., to see how many visits the parent 

 birds made to the young. One hundred and nineteen visits 

 were made by the male and one hundred and ninety-three by 

 the female. 2 



' The Feeding Hal)its of the Chipping Sparrow, by C. M. Weed. Bulletin 

 No. .55, New Hampshire College Agricultural Experiment Station, 1898. 

 - C. C. Musselman, in Agriculture of Pennsylvania, 1887, p. 105. 



