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AMERICAN FORESTRY 



YOUNG JAYS 



Figure 7. Young nestling jays possess a plumage that distinctly fore- 

 casts that of the adults; it is of a lovely blue, barred on the wings 

 with white, with black and white on the nape, and dusky white on the 

 lower parts. These three little beauties were carefully reared, and 

 given their freedom when able to fly well. 



It is now a well-established fact that when the female 

 woodcock for any reason desires to remove her young 

 from one place to another, she takes them out, one at a 

 time, between her feet, and, holding them securely, she 

 flies off with them to a place of safety. 



From all that has been set forth above, it is clear that 

 the study of nestling birds is a very large and a very 

 varied subject, not to say one full of interest even to the 

 lay student ; and when these last chance to be foresters, 

 the opportunities for study are many and of a most 

 varied kind. 



Naturalists have bestowed similar attention and the 

 literature is fully as extensive upon the description of 

 the processes of the coloring of the egg shells in the 

 case of birds, which, as we know, vary widely in color, 

 marking, and form. The reader's attention has already 

 been invited in this article to the wonderful coloring 

 and markings of the egg shells of many birds ; but space 



YOUNG INDIGO BIRDS 



Figure 8. This nest was photographed by the writer in the exact 

 position selected for it by its builders; the background was eliminated 

 in the usual way. At this stage even the male nestling shows but 

 very little blue in its plumage. The birds are about ready to leave home. 



THE CARDINAL GROSBEAK 



Figure 9. As shown, the birds built this nest in the shrubs and bushes 

 overhanging a stream in southern Maryland, where the writer, with 

 great difficulty, succeeded in photographing it in situ. 



has been lacking in which to describe how all this is 

 done. It has been most extensively studied by not a 

 few investigators, and the subject takes into considera- 

 tion the form and size of the egg; the anatomy of the 

 parts wherein the eggs are formed and pass out of the 

 bird's body ; the physics and physiology of that passage ; 

 the character of the parts that secrete the pigments ; the 

 physiology of the onlaying of the various pigments on 

 the tgg shells as they pass through the parts to the point 

 of exit ; the chemistry of those pigments ; the effect upon 

 pigmentation owing to the age of the bird or her physical 

 condition as to health or disease at the time of laying, 

 and not a few other things. Yet with all this investiga- 

 tion extending back for more than a century, there still 

 remains much demanding further study and experimen- 

 tation before even this small chapter in scientific orni- 

 thology can be said to be, in this particular field, in any 

 way complete. 



