Vol Y9L3 XI1 ] Simmons, Nesting of Texan Birds. 319 



and a little sand, while for food a quantity of common corn chops was 

 thrown to them. But it was soon found that they would not touch 

 chops; so numbers of small, tender angle worms were taken, cut into 

 sections about a quarter of an inch long and thrown into the water where 

 the downy young ducks could reach them. These were eagerly devoured, 

 as was boiled rice, but before this menu was arranged six of the young 

 maculosa departed this life. Three of the remaining four lived to become 

 full-fledged adults, and are alive and healthy at the time of the writing of 

 this note. 



Another, and probably the best method of feeding the remaining young 

 was to place in their pen a stale soup bone which drew large numbers of 

 flies. These the young eagerly caught and devoured, soon waxing fat and 

 luxuriant. 



Ixobrychus exilis. Least Bittern. — Prior to the breeding season of 

 1914 I had recorded but few specimens of this rare summer resident, and 

 had never found a nest. 



On May 30, 1914, while splashing through the small, marshy prairie 

 ponds about a mile southeast of Pierce Junction, and searching hopefully 

 for nests of the Mottled Duck and Louisiana Clapper Rail, I saw one of 

 these birds fly up from the reeds ahead of me. It was some time before I 

 could locate the nest, for it was evident that the bird had gone some dis- 

 tance through the rushes before taking wing. 



But when I did find it I was fully repaid for my search, for it contained 

 five eggs. The nest was supported by several rushes, dead reeds and the 

 broken stem of a small persimmon sapling growing in the pond. At this 

 point the reeds and rushes were not so thick, and the nest and eggs could 

 easily be seen at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet. The bottom of the 

 nest just touched the water, which was there about eighteen inches deep. 



The nest itself was quite firmly built, with few loose ends projecting from 

 the mass. It was built entirely of straight stems and twigs of a brushy 

 reed which grows about the ponds, quite different from the flexible reeds 

 and rushes used in the construction of the nests of the other water birds 

 of the region. It measured about six and a half inches across the top and 

 five inches high, being cone shaped and tapering towards the bottom. So 

 flat was the top of the nest that it seemed the slightest jar would cause the 

 eggs to roll off, for there were no rushes or grasses to guard the sides of the 

 nest as in the case of the Rails and Gallinules. 



The five eggs were of a pale, bluish white color, much paler than other 

 eggs of the Least Bittern I have examined. They were well incubated, 

 and measured: 1.19 X 89; 1.18 X .90; 1.18 X .89; 1.17 X .90; and 1.15 X 

 .88. 



On the same day, but in another of the small ponds or sloughs, I found a 

 second nest of this bird, which contained nothing but shells and fragments 

 of shells to show that the young had already left the nest. It was built of 

 the same rusty, inflexible twigs used in the first nest. 



