WITH BROWN PREDOMINATING 255 
with the sunlight bringing out the strong contrasts in his 
plumage, and his little brown throat swelling with music ; 
or, in masculine awkwardness, he tries to cover the eggs 
while his mate is enjoying avacation. Nearly half of the 
daylight hours he takes her place, but at night it is the 
mother who broods. Often when the female has been 
gone a long time he calls her, coaxingly, querulously, and 
at last imperatively, but I have never seen him leave until 
she had returned. ‘This constant care enables the Gros- 
beaks to defend their brood from the feathered kidnap- 
pers; and it is very necessary, for the nests are exposed 
to view from above. After a rest, when the mother has 
come to the nest again and settled herself comfortably 
with much turning and flufing of feathers, she often 
indulges in a sweet, warbling soliloquy, —a faint imita- 
tion of her mate’s brilliant song, but so low as to be 
inaudible at any great distance from the tree. 
The little Grosbeaks look like over-sized sparrow babies, 
covered at first only with a sparse hair-like down on 
crown and shoulders and afterwards feathering out in soft 
shades of brown. The bill is wide, rather than swollen, 
and both it and the tottery legs are pale straw color. 
From watching the adults gather insects for the young, 
I am confident that so long as they remain in the nest, 
they are fed upon an animal diet, and for the first few 
days by regurgitation. In a little less than two weeks 
they hop out onto the small branches, and by instinct are 
soon pecking at every green thing in sight. For some 
time they seem to keep with the adults, being fed and 
guarded tenderly by them. 
