108 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 84. 



they were incubating; the female doing most of the covering, 

 but both birds doing the feeding of the young. Until the 

 young were five days old one bird always stayed at the nest 

 and it was at this period that the last egg laid hatched. I 

 hardly expected it to hatch. This last hatched bird was con- 

 siderably smaller than the three others were at time of hatch- 

 ing and always seemed to me more or less dwarfed until about 

 time for them to leave the nest, when there was little differ- 

 ence to be seen in the size, but lots of difit'erence in their activ- 

 ity, the last hatched one being the most active of the entire lot. 



One thing I noticed about the downy young and that was 

 that they were entirely black, with the exception of the top 

 of the head, which was a bright orange color crossed with a 

 band of black about midway of the orange patch. The bill of 

 all the young was bone colored and crossed by a band of al- 

 most black about half way the length. This shows up very 

 well in cut No. 7 and No. 8. They carried these colors, both 

 on the top of the head and on the bills, until the time they 

 could fly and left the nest. Tw'o of the young in each nest 

 had a white patch on their throats about three inches from the 

 head. This shows up nicely in cut No. 7 also. These patches 

 were plainly visible when they could fly. Whether this was 

 a mark of the sexes I am unable to say, but believe it to be. 



The disposition of the young at all times in both nests was 

 fine. All were very active and restless after a week old, and 

 at the age of two weeks would not stay in the nest at all but 

 stray out to the ends of the limbs of the bushes in which the 

 nest was placed, returning, however, to the nest to be fed, as T 

 never observed on any occasion the old one feeding the young 

 any place but on the nest. In this they differ from the White 

 Ibis as they will feed the young wherever they find them and 

 seem to let the youngsters tyrannize over them. On several 

 occasions I noticed one or the other of the young when at the 

 age of about three weeks try to make his parents come to him 

 to feed him, but it never worked, as the old one would pay 

 not the slightest attention to him, and when it looked as 

 though the parent was through feeding and about ready to 



