“DO BIRDS WATER THEIR YOUNG?” 
Photographed by Mrs. S. Louise Patteson, Fairmount, Ohio 
In asking whether birds water their young, Mrs. S. Louise Patteson writes: “In 
feeding their young (see lower picture), Goldfinches go very close to them. But in the 
upper picture we have the parent alighting at a place where such close approach was 
impossible, and supplying them from that distance with what resembles a liquid. May 
it not be, therefore, that the photograph marks the discovery of the fact that birds 
do water, as well as feed, their young?” 
To the editor, however, it seems more probable that the line of attachment between 
the bills of the adult and young is a glutinous saliva adhering to the birds’ bills after 
the withdrawal of the bill of the adult from the mouth of its offspring. —EpiTor. 
(152) 
