Care of Young and Nest. 



107 



times ; once a part of the excreta was taken away and a part eaten ; five times it was re- 

 moved from the nest, and on eleven visits all was devoured. 



After watching such behavior, which I have seen repeated with slight variations hun- 

 dreds of times, I am convinced that the excreta in such cases is actually eaten, and not 

 merely taken into the gullet to be later regurgitated. It is true that the Cedar-bird uses 

 its distensible gullet as a temporary receptacle for the food destined for the young, and 

 it might seem probable that the excreta went no farther than the oesophagus, from which 

 it was later ejected. The actions of the birds just described and in many similar cases 

 observed do not support this idea. 



Not only are the young care- 

 fully tended in the way explained, 

 but the old birds often put the head 

 down-'-" in the nest and rummage 

 about for any stray particle of food 

 or fragments of any kind which it is 

 desirable to remove. While stand- 

 ing at the nest they will sometimes 

 pick energetically their own legs and 

 toes, and the heads and bodies of the 

 young, a very important function 

 where the nest is infested with those 

 minute swarming particles known as 

 lice and mites. Every straw and 

 fiber in the Cedar-bird's nest shown 

 in one of the photographs (Fig. 38) was 

 literally covered with parasites, in this 

 case a species of mite which is a poor 

 and degenerate relation of the spider. 

 When the nest or anything in it was 

 touched they would swarm up the 

 hand by hundreds, but they are 

 barely visible to the eye, and apart 

 from a slight tickling sensation between the fingers are scarcely felt. They do not seem 

 to trouble the old birds much, but must give discomfort to the young, especially if from 

 any other cause they happen to be weakly. 



One would suppose that cleanliness must be an imperative instinct with such a bird 

 as the Kingfisher, whose nest is underground, but the semi-fluid excreta is not re- 

 moved from the tunnel, which according to some observers, becomes fouled in con- 

 sequence. This was not true of the nest which I had under observation last summer. 

 In the course of seventeen days the nesting chamber was moved forward more than a 

 foot, so that it always presented a clean surface. 



The Barn Swallow, the House Sparrow, and the wild Passenger Pigeon represent a 

 considerable number of birds which secure protection in their breeding haunts by other 

 means than by concealing the nest. While their nests may be clean, this is not true of 

 the ground beneath. It is plainly advantageous for the smaller birds which breed in 



Fig. 103. Female Kingbird attending sanitation of nest. 



