YELLOW OR ORANGE CONSPICUOUS 511 
From the very first they are fascinating, pinkish salmon 
babies, without feathers or down, except a very little 
patch on the head and shoulders, and a thin dark strip 
on either side of the back. Developing very rapidly on 
the diet of water-snails, slugs, and slimy water larvee of 
all sorts, on which they are fed by regurgitation at first, 
they soon become handsome enough in their soft brown 
coats to delight any father’s eyes. Their bills change 
from buff to black, and the inside of the throat becomes 
an exquisite rose-pink. Nor are their heads bare, as is 
the case with young red-wings. In two weeks or sixteen 
days after hatching they are ready to leave the nest, and 
now it is the father who coaxes them step by step back 
through the rushes to the safer meadow and _ teaches 
them how to find their own food. As soon as they learn 
this they become very independent and, leaving their 
parents, join flocks of other young Yellow-heads, who, 
with a few adults, keep together the rest of the sum- 
mer and through the fall and winter. ‘They scatter over 
the valleys, wherever the food supply tempts, chatter- 
ing, frolicking, and gradually donning adult plumage 
until, when spring calls again, they are off en masse to 
marshland, 
501 b. WESTERN MEADOWLARK. — Sturnella magna 
neglecta. 
Famity: The Blackbirds, Orioles, ete. 
Length: Male 8.31-10.14 ; Female 7.74-9.00. 
Adult Male: Upper parts grayish brown, streaked and barred with buffy, 
white, and black ; crown with median buffy white stripe ; lores yel- 
