394: Tyler, A Successful Pair of Robins. Uuly 



bars of the former hue or men chestnut in some examples. The 

 tibioe are pale chestnut. Adult females are met with nearly as 

 light-colored beneath as some third plumage males, and for a 

 long time I was greatly perplexed by them — being reluctant to 

 shoot specimens on account of their exceeding tameness. 



The passage in Coues describing the adult female (op. cit., p. 

 5-17"): "throat pure white but other underparts probably never 

 whitening decidedly" led me to suppose that these might be males 

 despite the fact that they were incubating. Having at length 

 watched the mother of my tame hawks (which was of this light 

 type") lay an egg, all my doubts were removed. 



A SUCCESSFUL PAIR OF ROBINS. 1 



BY WIXSOR M. TYLER, M. D. 



The following notes, taken for the most part while I had the birds 

 under my eye, tell the story, as 1 saw it, of a pair of Robins | Plancsti- 

 cus migratorius migratorius) who successfully reared two broods of 

 young from the same nest between April 26, 1912, when the nest 

 was begun, and July S, 1912, when the second brood was fledged. 



1 am sorry that 1 was able to watch the birds very little during 

 the rearing of their first brood. After the completion of the nest, 

 my notes give merely the dates of incubation, hatching and fledging. 

 They make no reference to the feeding of the young and none to the 

 disposal of excrement. 1 regret especially the latter omission, for, 

 if we knew how generally the excrement was eaten early in the 

 season, we might, by comparing the later behavior in this respect, 

 get a hint of the extent that the excrement is used to satisfy hunger. 

 In early -Inly, when the female parent was feeding her second brood, 

 her feathers showed much wear ami she appeared emaciated. At 

 this time, she almost invariably ate all the excrement that the 



iKead before the NuttaU Ornithological Club, Feb. 17, 1913. 



