106 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 84. 



put up my photographic bhnd I stumbled onto these two pairs 

 just beginning to build their nests^ the second for the season 

 as all of the first built nests had been abandoned after being 

 looted by the Fish Crows which swarmed in the rookery. 

 While set up on a nest of the "Long Whites" (American 

 Eg-ret) I had a good opportunity to watch the actions of these 

 two pair of birds. They evidently worked faster than they 

 did on their first nests as time was flying and it behooved them 

 to get the nest built before it became time for them to "hike"' 

 to other feeding grounds. 



Both parent birds aided in the construction of the nest and 

 I could not see that one bird did any more of the work than the 

 other. I did note, however, that in one case the female selected 

 the site and in the other the male did the selecting. Both 

 nests were built at a height of about ten feet in thick elder 

 bushes, and about three feet from the tops of the bushes, a? 

 l)lainly show^s in the accompanying photographs. The nests 

 were ready for eggs at the end of the second day, although 

 the nests were not finished by any means. Glossy Ibis have 

 the same characteristics as the White Ibis in that they continue 

 to add to their nest even up to the time that the young are able 

 to leave it, so that by the time the eggs are ready to hatch the 

 nest will be almost double the size that it was when the first 

 egg was laid. An egg- was laid each day until one nest con- 

 tained four and the other three. Incubation did not start until 

 after the last egg had been laid a full day. After the first 

 egg was laid, however, the nest was never without one or the 

 other of the pair close by, something that was very necessary 

 in this Rookery on account of the thieving Fish Crows. Dur- 

 ing the period of incubation, which lasted in each case exactly 

 twenty-one days, I noticed that the female did most of the 

 incubating; the male, however, put in about six hours out of 

 the twenty-four covering the eggs. The female sat all night 

 and imtil about 8 :30 or 9 :00 a. m. when the male came in from 

 his morning hunt for food ; on his approach to the nest he 

 would give his call when about fifty feet away and his mate 

 would immediately answer and spring up from the nest and 



