Home Life of the Glossy Ibis. 109 



go away the youngster would give in and come climbing 

 down to the nest, where the old would treat him just as if 

 he had been there all the time. I never noticed any of the 

 young fighting among themselves like the Herons will some- 

 times do, but at all times they acted like well behaved chil- 

 dren, the only exceptions being that the three older birds 

 would often take turns in trying to apparently swallow the 

 last hatched baby. He was sure a hardy scamp or he would 

 never have lived through the treatment he had to undergo. 



Right here is the time to record the feeding habits of the 

 Glossy Ibis. They feed like the White Ibis, principally on 

 crayfish, cut worms, grasshoppers and other insects, and 

 young moccasins. When the young are over three weeks old 

 over half the food of these Glossy Ibis would be moccasiub, 

 I kept a record of the food by making the young disgorge af- 

 ter the old ones had fed them. This itemized record will ap- 

 pear further along. The manner of the Glossy Ibis in feed- 

 ing is to regurgigate the food up in the throat or mouth and 

 for the young to put his bill, and many times head, down the 

 old one's throat and take his portion. After one bird has 

 been fed the second and third will get their turns, never longer 

 than three minutes apart and usually immediately. I have 

 seen the three young get two portions each in about seven 

 minutes. Quick work this. They would each get four to five 

 portions at each visit of the parent ; when young, however, 

 they would get as high as seven and eight turns. They would, 

 of course, at this tender age, be unable to take on a very large 

 quantity, and it would also be in a finer state of digestion, as 

 many times I have seen the parent return from feeding and 

 stand around and caress the young and not offer to feed un- 

 til an hour had elapsed. This no doubt was to allow the food 

 to digest to a point where the young would be able to eat it. 

 But after the young had reached the age of two weeks and 

 more this was never necessary, as they could at that age take 

 anything from a portion of a half grown moccasin to a grown 

 crayfish. At this age of the young the meal, if a moccasin, 

 would be disgorged into the nest, and being half digested, be 



