Se oad OweEN, A Captive Hermit Thrush. 3 
water, in some way, to the digestive tract of the Thrush, which 
for many days refused to drink. Although the bird bathed almost 
daily, and once, at least, bathed twice in one day, up to July 31, 
when observation was discontinued, it drank in my presence but 
three times. These exceptions to its rule of abstinence occurred 
during some hot weather toward the end of its confinement. 
The young Thrush took kindly to its diet of meat. June 28, 
between 8 a. M. and 7 Pp. M., it was fed eight times and swallowed 
27 bits of meat. June 29, between 8 a.m. and 8 P.M., it was fed 
ten times and ate 25 pieces of meat. In order to get a more 
definite idea of the appetite that demanded this amount of solid 
nourishment, I began, July 4, to weigh the bird’s food, as well as 
the bird itself. As this little investigation proceeded, it became 
apparent that the bird’s weight fluctuated greatly within a space 
of twenty-four hours. Thus July 4, at night, the Thrush weighed 
30 grammes, while in the morning of July 5 it weighed but 25.5 
grammes, a loss during the night of 4.5 grammes. To appre- 
ciate the significance of this variation, let it be noted that the 
loss in a single night was 15 per cent of the total weight, so 
that if a 150 pound man were to suffer the same diminution in 
avoirdupois, between going to bed and rising, he would lose no 
less than 22.5 pounds. 
In order to get comparable figures, I made it a practice, there- 
fore, after July 5, to weigh the bird in the morning. For the five 
days, July 4 to July 8, inclusive, the bird’s average weight was 
27-7 grammes, and the average weight of meat eaten daily, 13.56 
grammes. ‘These figures do not convey a strictly accurate idea of 
the bird’s appetite, because I was absent from my study several 
hours daily, and the Thrush, undoubtedly, would have eaten more 
if assiduously tended. For example, July 7, between the hours of 
11.30 A.M. and 8.45 P.M., being constantly looked after, the 
bird ate r2 grammes of meat, nearly as much as its average for a 
whole day ; and although my record indicates that it ate about 50 
per cent of its weight in meat, yet I feel certain that under the 
most favorable conditions it would have made way with at least its 
own weight of raw beef, daily. 
While meat formed the staple diet of my Thrush, during the first 
weeks of its confinement, and was used, more or less, throughout, 
