° 1918 J Perky, Vesper Sparrow and Hermit Thrush. 317 



was much more neatly constructed than were the sparrows' nests. 

 The same building materials were used bracken stems and blue, 

 grass, with the addition of a lining of pine needles. A few oak 

 leaves on the margin helped to hide it from view, since the sur- 

 rounding surface, too, was strewn with oak leaves. The nest 

 contained four greenish blue eggs when I first discovered it. 



As soon as the eggs began to hatch, I had the tent pitched and 

 began to study this family as I had studied the sparrows. My 

 first discovery was that I had a much shyer bird with which to deal. 

 I sat through the first day, waiting in vain for the parents to take 

 care of their young. Neither one came to the nest from morning 

 till noon, nor from noon until 5 P. M. All I saw for my watching 

 was four weak heads raised every now and then on unsteady necks, 

 and four yellow, opened mouths close unfed. Fearing that the 

 parents might desert the nest, I left at 5 P. M. Toward evening I 

 returned. The nestlings were cold, and had not been fed or brooded, 

 I believe, since I left. I had the blind removed. Since the young 

 were warm and in good condition the next morning, I had the blind 

 pitched a second time. This time I cut a few leafy branches and 

 placed them over the window end, to cover up any perceptible 

 movement across the slit. I accomplished little more the second 

 day than I had on the first. The parents approached the nest 

 with food, but never became quite courageous enough to enter the 

 home. On the third day I found that the parents had decided to 

 conduct the affairs of their household regardless of the introduction 

 of a staring white tent right beside their nest. 



I could not distinguish the parents from each other until the 

 fifth day. I then found that one had a much grayer back, lores, 

 and mid-tail feathers than the other. I called this the male. 



Their manner of conducting their home duties was so similar 

 to that of the sparrows that they might well have been the same 

 family. For a while I felt that they were not such clean nest- 

 keepers. One of the nestlings had died the second day from a 

 rupture near the anal opening, and was left in the nest until it 

 swarmed with ants that came to feed upon it. On the fifth day, 

 while I was away, it and all the excrement that had been allowed 

 to accumulate were removed. No doubt this apparent laxity was 

 due to the birds being disturbed. From then on, at any rate, 

 everything was kept clean. The Hermit Thrushes removed the 



