AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



129 



ful supply concealed in her throat and crop, for Cedar Birds feed their 

 young by the process of regurgitation. Sometimes the food is ad- 

 ministered to the little ones in a well masticated condition and again it 

 may be in its natural state. As she stepped up on the edge of the nest, 

 all the young heads were elevated and she assumed the attitude of in- 

 spection shown in Fig. 1. After watching them intently for a few mo- 

 ments, perhaps to find out which one was t'le most hungry, she threw 

 her head forwards and upwards and in her then wide open bill, appeared 

 a bright red cherry: This was immediately thrust down the throat of 

 one of the young and she assumed the watching attitude again. Evi- 

 dently she concluded she had fed the wrong one, for she soon removed 

 the cherry from the throat of the little one who was just commencing 

 to enjoy his meal, and placed it in the open mouth of one of his broth- 

 ers. It is said that the old birds can tell by the muscular action of the 

 throat whether the young are ready to receive food or not. Certainly 

 to look at the four young ones in Fig. 5, one would conclude that they 

 were all equally hungry, but if this theory is correct you can not al- 

 ways judge by appearances, for it is a very common occurrence for 

 them to transfer the food from one mouth to the other. Personally, I 



am inclined to believe that they are 

 training their little ones to follow a 

 custom that is peculiar to adult Cedar 

 Birds. Frequently when a number 

 of them are feeding on the same 

 branch in a cherry tree, one will 

 seize a cherry, pass it to the next, 

 who in turn will hand it along to an- 

 other. A number of times I have 

 seen a cherry passed to three indi- 

 viduals before it was finally eaten. 

 These two birds seemed to have a 

 regular system in going after food. 

 After we had watched them for 

 some time, we found that they al- 

 ways made their little journeys in 

 company with two other Cedar 

 Birds. The three of them would fly 

 to a cherry tree in the yard of a 

 house about a quarter of a mile 

 away, where they seemed to have 

 no difficulty in finding a number of 

 belated cherries. On their return 

 our bird would leave the trio when 



Fig. 6. 



RIPE 



Photo from life. 



CHERRIES. 



