312 Perry, Vesper Sparrow and Hermit Thrush. [jjjy 



were a'ways crawling through the lining and into the nest. I often 

 used to see the parents perched on the nest, with most of the upper 

 part of the body hidden as they searched through the wall for re- 

 treating ants. Frequently the wind blew bits of leaves or grass 

 into the nest. These were never allowed to remain. The excreta 

 of the young never soiled the home; it was eaten by the parent as 

 soon as the nestling evacuated it from the cloaca. Consequently 

 the nest looked as clean when the family left as it did the first day 

 of its use. 



Another duty of the sparrow parents was that of brooding, 

 The greater amount of this was done by the one I took to be the 

 female. In the second nest neither parent did much brooding, 

 but the male did none. During the hottest part of the day the 

 female, her mouth agape, often stood up in the nest with wings 

 outspread to keep the heat of the sun from the nestlings. While I 

 was observing the first nest, there was a heavy, driving rain storm 

 that lasted nearly two hours. The female did duty then. She 

 brooded facing the storm, the water running off her back in rivulets. 

 She was a drenched bird when the storm decreased and the dry 

 male came to relieve her. The nestlings, however, were perfectly 

 dry. 



A third duty was that of feeding the young. The parents were 

 kept busy bringing food on an average of every twenty minutes for 

 the first few days. This interval decreased to ten by the fifth day, 

 and then slightly increased to the seventh day. In the first nest 

 the ratio of feeding was 11: 7 in favor of the female, in the second, 

 it was 2:1. The parents brought grasshoppers, crickets, katydids, 

 sawfly larvae, and some hairy larva? I could not identify. I rather 

 thought they selected small specimens when the birds were small. 

 At times, however, they brought such large grasshoppers, with legs 

 and wings missing, that the young could swallow them only with 

 much struggling. The parent bird always placed the food well 

 down the throat of the nestling by inserting its own mandible into 

 the mouth. Often the nestling still held its mouth agape after the 

 food had been placed in it and did not seem able to swallow for a 

 few seconds. The mother of one of the families had a difficult 

 task in getting any of the nestlings to swallow a large brown cater- 

 pillar. She placed it into mouth after mouth and then tried all 



