64 



Bird- Lore 



that only once or twice during eight or ten trips did she stop to take a worm 

 before she flew away, and the short decisive chep which she uttered frequently 

 on leaving seemed indicative of a mind intent on business. 



The male during this time was no mere drone. There was the nest to guard 

 and his mate to feed, and he did both gallantly. There was never a knight more 



FEMALE BLUEBIRD ON THE HAND, MALE ON THE PoRCH, .\L\V 21 



chivalrous than this Bluebird in his devotion to his mate. Seldom did he help 

 himself to a worm without carrying one to her. If she were arranging grasses 

 in the nest, he would either take the worm inside, or with craning neck wait 

 on the shelf-rim below the porch until she reappeared. There was one ludicrous 

 occasion when, seized with a sudden nervous fear of being pecked, he ducked 

 with the worm just as she bent to take it, and three times he withdrew it from 

 her reach before he could muster courage to keep still while she took it from 

 his beak. 



After four days of labor the nest was finished on Wednesday, April 17. Then 

 came an interval of two days, during which the birds visited the window little 

 except when they came for food. 



On Saturday, April 20, the first egg was laid, and on each day following 

 another appeared, until there were five in all. 



Incubation began on April 25, the day after the last egg was laid. The inter- 

 vals of brooding and not-brooding might well have been described in Finnigan's 

 laconic message, "Off again, on again, gone again." Several careful watches 

 showed that the mother-bird was on the eggs in the early days of incubation 

 two-thirds, in the later days one-half of the time. It would be of interest to com- 

 pare these intervals of sitting with tho.se of birds which build open nests, and 



