AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



131 



female rose to the edge of the nest and looked at her partner in a 

 threatening manner and with mouth partly open. He understood the 

 manouver if we did not, and at once came to her side. Fig. 4 shows 

 him at the left just after he had gone through the motions of "cough- 

 ing up" a partly digested cherry. It can be indistinctly seen along the 

 edge of his bill. Fig. 5 shows the female at a little later period in the 

 same operation. Failing light now necessitated our return home and 

 it was two weeks before we again saw them. In the meantime we had 

 a terrific thunder storm, accompanied by a heavy fall of hail. It was 

 with feelings of misgiving that we approached the spot, but the string 

 mentioned previously had done its work, and the nest, though some- 

 what awry, was still there, and the overhanging branch had warded off 

 the hail sufficiently to allow the suffering mother to maintain her posi- 

 tion. As we came near, both birds left the nest, and the young, who 

 were about ready to fly, all stretched their heads forwards as far as 

 possible in the same manner as the adults. In the meantime it had 

 clouded up, and all our attempts to get a satisfactory picture of the 

 young birds were unavailing. Try as we would, we could not get the 

 four of them to sit on a branch at the same time. If one was not poked 

 off by its neighbor, he would flutter off on his own account, and before 

 leaving would be sure to grab the wing of the one nearest him, and pull 

 this one along too. We did not even get a good picture of one of them 

 alone. Although they can look pretty, they all seemed determined to 

 act just as meanly as they could and would take the most ungraceful of 

 attitudes. Fig. 6 shows one of the adults just as he has brought a 

 cherry up to his mouth. This was for a youngster who was perching on 

 the limb at his left. Fig. 7 shows the female and one of her hopefuls. 

 It was taken just before another cherry appeared. We repeatedly saw 

 them bring two and three cherries from their throat, and on one trip 

 one of the birds brought four. They were ever on the alert for insects 

 too, and time after time, they would dart out from their perch on the 

 top of the tree and return with unsuspecting insects. 



Photo from life. 



THE SWAN FAMILY 



