166 Bird - Lore 
next time he had visited a garden down the hillside, for he brought one rasp- 
berry in his bill and coughed up three more. 
The three young Grosbeaks left the nest the morning of July 6. They 
were not able to fly more than a few feet, but they knew how to perch and 
call for food. I never heard a more enticing dinner song. The minute a young- 
ster’s appetite was satisfied, he always took a nap. There was no worry on 
his mind as to where the next bite was coming from. He just contracted into 
a fluffy ball, and he didn’t pause a second on the borderland. It was so simple. 
His lids closed, and it was done. He slept soundly, too, for when I stroked the 
feathers of one, he didn’t wake, but, at the sound of the parents’ wings, he 
awoke as suddenly as he dropped asleep. 
I have watched a good many bird families, but I never saw 
Home-Life the work divided as it seemed to be in the Grosbeak house- 
hold. The first day I stayed about the nest, I noticed that the 
father was feeding the children almost entirely, and whenever he brought a 
mouthful, he hardly knew which one to feed first. The mother fed about 
once an hour, while he fed every ten or fifteen minutes. This seemed rather 
contrary to my understanding of bird ways. Generally the male is wilder 
than his wife, and she has to take the responsibility of the home. The next 
day I watched at the nest, conditions were the same, but I was surprised to 
see that parental duties were just reversed. The mother was going and coming 
continually with food, while the father sat about in the tree-tops, sang and 
preened his feathers leisurely, only taking the trouble to hunt up one mouthful 
for his bairns to every sixth or seventh the mother brought. To my surprise, 
the third day I found the father was the busy bird again. Out of eighteen 
plates exposed that day on the Grosbeak family, I got only five snaps at the 
mother, and three of these were poor ones. The fourth day I watched, the 
mother seemed to have charge of the feeding again, but she spent most of 
her time trying to coax the bantlings to follow her off into the bushes. It 
was hardly the father’s day for getting the meals, but, on the whole, he fed 
almost as much as the mother, otherwise the youngsters would not have 
received their daily allowance. I have watched at some nests where the young 
were cared for almost entirely by the mother, and I have seen others where 
those duties were taken up largely by the father. Many times] have seen both 
parents work side by side in rearing a family, but the Grosbeaks seemed to 
have a way of dividing duties equally and alternating with days of rest and 
labor. 
