70 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 83. 



rods to the east there was an oat stubble and the unoccupied 

 part of a cemetery, from which the grass had just been cut 

 for hay. 



The birds finished the nest in a week, the eg"g's were laid 

 in another week, incubation consumed eleven days, and the 

 birds left the nest nine days after hatching. It was not pos- 

 sible to learn the number of young without breaking" the nest 

 open, which was not done. It was supposed that there were 

 seven young. They were hatched early on the morning of 

 July 22 and left the nest about ten o'clock on July 31. 



This family was under observation 65 hours and 4 minutes. 

 On three days the observations began before the awakening 

 of tlie old birds. There were two days when no observations 

 were made. There were 667 visits made tO' the nest, of which 

 560 were made by the male and 107 by the female. This 

 great discrepancy is due to the fact that the female did not 

 leave the nest much, but received the food from the male and 

 fed the young herself. The male rarely entirely disappeared 

 within the nest hole. Apparently the female left the nest only 

 to obtain food for herself. No droppings were removed from 

 the nest for the first three days, but must have been eaten 

 by the female, since the nest was left clean. 



The average number of visits per hour was a little better 

 than 10. The approach to the nest was usually from the east, 

 the birds alighting on the barbed wire within a few feet of 

 the nest, and then flying out and darting into the nest hole, 

 but many times there was no stop from the time the birds 

 left the place where food was procured until they darted into 

 the nest hole. The male almost invariably sang before and after 

 visiting the nest, unless he flew directly in, and left without 

 first perching on the fence. The food was mostly secured 

 from the oat stubble and the cemetery, but some was found 

 m the corn field, and only a little of it in the orchard. 



There were 637 pieces of food brought, of which 161 were 

 Geometrid larvae, 1-11 leaf-hoppers, 112 young- grasshoppers, 

 5(> bugs, 42 spiders, 29 crickets, 10 moths, 5 ants, 4 scatter- 

 ing, and 29 times nothing was brought. 81 pieces were un- 



