The Cedar-Bird 



101 



or harvest-fly brought to the nest, but never dragon-flies, butter- 

 flies, or moths. The cicada made a lively struggle for a few 

 minutes ; it was placed 

 in one open throat af- 

 ter another and with- 

 drawn eight different 

 times, before a gullet 

 was found capable of 

 the proper reaction 

 time. If a bird was 

 slow he lost his chance, 

 and another was tried. 

 The key was at last 

 fitted to the lock, and 

 the bruised and bat- 

 tered cicada was taken 

 in, but the old bird had 

 not finished her task. 

 She began tossing up 

 her head and producing 

 bird-cherries. Then 

 she gave the nest a 

 thorough renovation. 

 In doing this the 

 mother often walks 

 around the rim, and 

 attends to each nest- 

 ling in succession, 

 sometimes even in- 

 specting one bird more 

 than once. 



At first I found it 

 difficult to tell the old 

 birds apart until I 



noticed a distinguishing mark on the female, who had a little bare 

 spot where the feathers had come out, on the right side in front 

 of the wing. This shows plainly in many of the photographs. 



Fig. 59- Young Cedar-bird from nest shown in 

 Figs. 53-58: photographed on the morning of flight, 

 July 19, 1900. The bird was not touched, but occu- 

 pies a natural perch, chosen by himself. 



