FRIENDS IN FEATHERS 



for that treat what he would not for his nestlings; and how his 

 sharp beak did shear into it ! 



Ornithologists tell us that the diet of a Black Vulture is 

 carrion. To reasonable people that should be construed as 

 a general rule, but not taken to mean that if a Vulture eats 

 a morsel of anything else it can not be a Vulture. Once during a 

 Vulture series in the Limberlost a bird of this family in close 

 quarters presented me with his dinner. In his regurgitations 

 there were dark streaks I did not understand, so I investigated. 

 They were grass! Later I saw him in a fence-corner, snip- 

 ping grass like a Goose, while the week following his mate ate 

 a quantity of catnip with evident relish. Then some red rasp- 

 berries were placed in the mouth of their log and both of them 

 ate the fruit. 



In the regurgitations of a Kingfisher there can be found the 

 striped legs of grasshoppers and the seeds of several different 

 kinds of berries. All grain- and seed-eaters snap up a bug or 

 worm here and there. All insect-eaters vary their diet with bugs 

 and berries, while all meat- and carrion-eaters crave some vege- 

 table diet. 



Through repeated experiences with the same pairs I know 

 that Cardinals of my locality nest twice in a season, and I believe 

 there are cases where they do three times, as I have photographed 

 young in a nest as late as the twenty-ninth of August. Had it not 

 been that a pair were courting for a second mating around a nest 

 still containing their young, almost ready to go, such a picture 

 as this pair of courting Cardinals never would have been possible 

 to me. But after one brooding they became so accustomed to 

 me that they flitted close their home, making love as well as 

 feeding the nestlings. Frequently in my work I have followed a 

 pair of Cardinals from one nest to a new location a few rods away 

 where they continued operations in a second brooding. 



17 



