66 



Bird - Lore 



period of thirty-eight minutes the male carried out one sac, the female two. 

 The irregularity with which this function was seemingly performed raises the 

 question of whether the sacs are ever eaten by the parents, a question which 

 might easily be answered if the nest-house were made with a window in one 

 side. 



As early as the third day after the little birds were hatched, they began to 

 give their nestling-notes, a series of syllables like chee-ee-ee-ee, chee-ee-ee-ee, 

 chee-ee-ee-ee, repeated as often as the old birds came with food. These notes 

 were faint at first, but grew louder every day, and they were the only ones until 

 the time drew near for flight. On the afternoon of the day before their debut, 

 a faint sound of tiirwee was once heard within the nest, and twice a little head 



1 K MALI-, lil.l hl;l Kl 



A I I HK LI-; 11, Vi)L'\(, iilRli IN 1 H I-. ( I, \ 

 RIGHT 'TWINKLING' HIS WING. JUNE 4 



MALE AT THE 



appeared at the nest-hole. This confirmed the observation of the year before, 

 that the signal-note in the young birds heralds their approaching flight. Another 

 indication of the exit, near at hand, lay in the sound of whirring wings, which 

 began three days before they left the nest. 



Frida}', May 24, which was the sixteenth day after hatching, was the 'coming- 

 out' time for the young Bluebirds, and excitement ran high. The nestlings were 

 still in the nest at noon, and the parents were busy feeding, flying into and out 

 of the room. Occasionally a little one scrambled up to the nest-hole for a moment, 

 or clung there for a time, gazing out upon the world and calling turrit to its parents, 

 who answered from the trees. Once, as the mother flew in for worms, she spied 

 on the table near the dish a long cedar lead-pencil. It was motionless, it was 

 true, and very large, but it had many of the points of a meal-worm — it was long 

 and rounded, it was firm and smooth and brown — and what a find for a parent 

 with five clamorous mouths to fill! Whatever may have been the mental pro- 



