396 LAND BIRDS 
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following I did not once see the male enter the nest or 
bring food to the female. She seemed a careless mother, 
leaving the eggs nearly every day for several hours at a 
time. At least once during these absences she had en- 
joyed a bath, for her feathers seemed quite wet when 
she came to the tree. After a short preening she slipped 
inside. I presume this was a daily occurrence. When 
the nestlings finally broke the shell, it was not necessary 
to climb to the nest to discover the fact, for the changed 
behavior of the male told the secret. He was all fussi- 
ness, and instead of dozing in the sun on an exposed 
perch, he came every five minutes or so with bugs for 
those small naked babies. At first he swallowed these 
and flew almost immediately to feed the young by regur- 
gitation, but as they grew older he carried raw food to 
the nest. Often he alighted on the tree near the tiny 
doorway and by pulling off the wings and legs prepared 
the soft parts of the insect to be eaten by his nestlings. 
From the amount of food consumed one would imagine 
nothing smaller than young owls inhabited the nursery. 
Twenty-two grasshoppers were taken in less than half an 
hour, making more than seven apiece. The nestlings 
being so small, this seems an appalling amount to be 
crammed into those tiny throats; but it evidently agreed 
with them, for they grew at a surprising pace, and on the 
sixteenth day they were well prepared for their début. 
The first flight was no farther than a sheltering branch 
of the same tree, and there the plump little fellows sat 
all one day looking out over the green forest world with 
wondering baby eyes. On the fourth day, in a lower 
