Vol. XXII 

 1905 



WHEELOCK, Regurgitative Feeding of Nestlings. (5$ 



between eight and ten-thirty a. m. as contrasted with seventeen 

 fh the same length of time on the day of hatching. 



Slender-billed Nuthatches (JSitta carolinensis aculeatd) are so 

 much shyer than their small relatives, the Pygmies, that they are 

 much more difficult to observe. A nest found in an old wood- 

 pecker hole twenty feet from the ground at Romardennan, Cali- 

 fornia, May 3, contained five eggs just ready to hatch. On May 

 5, four nestlings and one infertile egg were found in it. feedings 

 by regurgitation took place for one day only, and the contents of 

 the crops were insect eggs and larvae. The parents resented our 

 meddling after this examination and did not come to the nest again 

 for more than two hours. On the second day, to my great surprise, 

 one of the adults brought a grub in his bill thus showing plainly 

 that fresh food was being given. Unfortunately for the record 

 either my investigations caused the Nuthatches to desert their 

 brood, or both parents fell victims to a collector ; for the third clay 

 found only the lifeless bodies of the young in the nest and no sign 

 of the adults about the place. 



For many years I had watched in the vain effort to obtain a com- 

 plete record of some species of Tanager. Nests in abundance we 

 had found, both of the Scarlet and Summer Tanager of the East 

 and the Louisiana Tanager in California, but so inaccessible were 

 they as to make accurate data impossible. Of three nests of the 

 Scarlet Tanager {Piranga erythromelas) within watching range, two 

 were deserted before incubation,— one because a Cowbird laid her 

 eggs in it, one because of our meddling. The third, in a tangle of 

 wild grapevine at the foot of a bluff, with Lake Michigan dashing 

 spray over it at every easterly gale, was the only one to fulfill our 

 hopes. It was a curious location for both nest and grapevine, and 

 we could hardly credit our good luck when we stumbled upon it 

 in descending from the Cliff Swallows seventy-five feet above. It 

 contained, July 2, four eggs which hatched two days later. The 

 old birds were very shy, refusing to come to the vicinity when any 

 watcher was in sight. We could keep no record of the visits of 

 the female because of her protective coloring; but, concealed in. a 

 deserted bathhouse, we were able to see the bright gleam of scar- 

 let as the male came to and left the nest. An examination of the 

 young, immediately after his departure on the first day, showed 



