44 



USEFUL BIRDS. 



Fig. 21. A young Woodcock, ready to 

 leave the nest. 



The Amount of Food required by Young Birds. 



It seems necessary to the health and comfort of the nest- 

 ling bird that its stomach be filled with food during most 

 of the day. Nearly half a century ago Prof. D. Tread well 



called attention to the great 

 food requirements of the 

 young Robin. Two young 

 birds from the nest were 

 selected for his experiment. 

 One soon died of starvation, 

 as the supply of food given 

 them at first was much too 

 small. The food of the re- 

 maining bird was gradually 

 increased from day to day, 

 until on the seventh day it 

 was given thirty-one angleworms ; but there was no increase 

 in its weight until, on the fourteenth day, it received sixty- 

 eight worms, weighing, all told, thirty-four pennyweights. 1 



Later the same bird ate 

 nearly one-half its own 

 weight of beef in a day. 

 A young man eating at 

 this rate Avould consume 

 about seventy pounds of 

 beefsteak daily. The 

 Robin even when full 

 grown required one-third 

 of its weight of beef 

 daily. 



Mr. Charles W. Nash fed a young Robin from fifty to 

 seventy cutworms and earthworms a day for fifteen days. 

 While experimenting to see how many cutworms the bird 

 would eat in a day, he fed it five and one-half ounces of this 

 food, or one hundred and sixty-five cutworms. As the 

 Robin weighed but three ounces in the morning, it must 



Fig. 22. Young Robins, in the nest. 



1 The Food of Young Robins, by D. Treadwell. Proceedings of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History, Vol. VI, pp. 396-399. 



