Olive-backed Thrush at Summer Home. 1521) 



When I attempted to weigh and measure the young, No. 2 

 was very gentle after being well fed, but the parent birds called 

 the young so tactfully that No. 4 began to respond, and at last 

 became so wild that I was obliged to desist. I succeeded in 

 getting the length of No. 2 and No. 4, the weight of No. 2, and 

 the approximate weight of No. 4. The birds in the nest that I 

 photographed left on the afternoon of the twelfth day. The 

 birds that I weighed and measured, were driven from the nest 

 by the parent birds after I attempted to weigh and measure 

 them at the close of the tenth day. 



After the young began to feather out, it was well nigh im- 

 possible to return them to the nest. No. 4 was the most 

 troublesome of all the birds in this respect. On the eighth 

 day of nest life, I had to resort to strategy to get any weights 

 and measurements at all. I put the nest in a grape basket and 

 tied the basket to the tree. This gave the nestlings plenty of 

 room, and enabled me to move the nest into the tent without 

 disturbing the young. 



On the ninth day, I began to feed the young with bread and 

 milk before moving the basket, and before returning it to the 

 tree. 



For the first few days of nest life, when I weighed and 

 measured the young the parent birds disappeared ; later a bird 

 fed the young several times during the feeding process, and on 

 the fourth day, the female returned to brood three times while 

 part of the neslings were out of the nest. When I moved the 

 nest to the blind, the feeling of the parent birds became very 

 tense. On the last day their fears knew no bounds ; they 

 uttered a most seductive and elaborate vocabulary of baby- 

 talk, they entreated, they scolded, they flew around the blind 

 snapping their beaks ; finally, as I related earlier in my story, 

 the youngest nestling answered the calls of the parent birds 

 and became very wild, I could do nothing with him but hold 

 him in the nest. At last all were quiet in the nest, and the 

 nest in place again, but the very tameness of the young, added 

 anew to the frenzy of the parent birds. (Fear is one of the 

 instincts cultivated in the Kindergarten of the birds ).^ 



