A Second Season of Bluebird Tenants 



67 



cesses which the sight provoked in our Bluebird's mind, the reaction was prompt, 

 and after one unsuccessful attempt she went saihng out of the window with the 

 pencil in her bill. At first thought this might seem a stupid act, but it must be 

 remembered that lead-pencils are by no means so famihar to Bluebirds as they 

 are to us, and the occasion was hardly one to call for abstract reasoning. It 

 was a case of getting food, and the trial-and-error method which the bird employed 

 we should probably have used in a similar situation. 



It was an exciting moment for the parents when the first nestling tumbled 

 out on to the nest-porch and then down to the shelf below. They hovered about, 

 scolding loudly, but soon they were feeding both it and the young still in the nest. 

 Number one stayed for some time about the window before it was joined by 



MALE BLUEBIRD AT THE DISH, THREE YOUNG ON THE SHELF-RIM. JUNE 10 



number two. Once it wiped its bill deliberately on the shelf-rim. Once it fell 

 into the room, and showed some fear as I hastened to pick it up. 



Within the nest, the reaction of the young to the arrival of the parents had 

 been tuned to the stimulus of sound or of mechanical vibrations, and it was 

 curious to notice now their failure to respond to the stimulus of sight. The 

 mother-bird's mind could not explain their frequent refusal to open their mouths 

 as she came with food, and she continued to go through the movements of feed- 

 ing, striking at their heads with the worm still in her bill. Sometimes they reacted 

 after several blows had been rained upon their heads, but frequentl}' they remained 

 unmoved. 



Number two had no sooner left the shelf than number three appeared at 

 the nest-hole. Calling iunvee, but getting no response from its parents, it dropped 

 back to the nest. A little later it scrambled up again, and sat halfway out on the 



