1916 ] Allen, Nesting of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 55 



the young, and after the 14th, when the young were just hatched, 

 I never saw the male at the nest. For several days he had sung 

 but little, but on the 20th he recovered his volubility and sang long 

 and loud and frequently. On the next day he was still voluble. 



On June 22 I went up to the nest to band the young birds. One 

 of them flopped out as I reached up to the nest from the ladder, 

 and fell fluttering to the ground, where it landed on its back and 

 lay. motionless. When I reached it and picked it up it remained 

 motionless in my hand, but did not appear to be dead or dNang, 

 and I concluded that it was "playing possum." I banded it and 

 put it back in the nest, where it stayed quietly. Another of the 

 young, which I banded, also "played possum." I could not find 

 the third young bird by feeling about, — the nest was above my 

 head, — and I think it may have disappeared, or possibly it was 

 underneath the other two. I refrained from poking about in the 

 nest much for fear of hurting the young. 



While I was at work at the nest, the female kept up an anxious 

 hick-ing near by and at one time uttered a rapid succession of 

 frantic hicks within a few feet ; but the male sang cheerfully through 

 it all and appeared not to notice what was going on. One may 

 imagine, of course, that he was merely trying to reassure his mate 

 or keep up her courage. He was especially voluble that morning, 

 particularly early in the morning, before I went up to the nest, 

 when his songs were unusually long and succeeded one another 

 with only very short rests between. 



On June 24, two days later, the male, which had been as voluble 

 as ever the day before, was not heard at all, and as the nest appeared 

 to be deserted, I went up to it and found it empty except for a dead 

 young one, one of those that I had banded and probably the one that 

 had fallen. Later I heard a surviving young one calling about a 

 hundred yards off, and saw the mother, which answered her off- 

 spring -with, the familiar hick note. 



I took the nest, which hung together remarkably well, consid- 

 ering the apparent looseness of its construction, and was easily 

 removed intact. It is difficult to assign any precise dimensions 

 to it, on account of its straggling character, but it may be called 

 eight inches in external and three and one-half inches in internal 

 diameter, and about four and one half inches deep externally and 



