Notes on the Red-Winged Blackp.ird 297 



time at which she became reconciled to the blind. Ths nest- 

 lings were painted with water colors we had been using on 

 lantern slides. Ordina-ry water colors had been previously 

 tried without much success but the results obtained with these 

 were fairly satisfactory. One of the nestlings had his beak 

 colored a bright red, the second, green, and the third was 

 left a normal color. The startling contrasts in the beaks 

 made it easy to determine which nestling -received the food. 

 We spent the afternoon of the thirtieth and all day July 1 

 watching this nest. We returned on the morning of the sec- 

 ond to find a sad state of affairs. One nestling had entirely 

 disappeared, a second was in the nest in a dying condition, 

 and a single torn bloody wing on the ground beneath the 

 nest testified to the fate of the third. Th^ ground about the 

 nest had been trampled hard by our movements in erecting 

 the blind and, although we searched carefully, we could find 

 no evidence betraying- the identity of the marauder. 



brooding. 

 Although this bird apparently never recovered from the 

 fear of the blind the lirooding instinct was very strongly de- 

 veloped. On every approach to the nest she uttered continu- 

 ally a single syllabled note of alarm. This note had a h?/rsh 

 metallic ring and has been represented by the word " tcheck." 

 It was accompanied by a jerking of the tail and quick mo- 

 tions of the head from side to s'de. On leaving the nest she 

 invariably gave a call of several syllables. This call was 

 very peculiar and difficult of description. In spite of her 

 manifest uneasiness at the ])resence of the blind she spent 

 most of the time, while the sun shone on the nest, in brooding. 

 The position of the blind and the surrounding vegetation ex- 

 posed the nest to the sun f-rom 8:30 to 10:10 whib it was 

 shaded during- the remainder of the day. On July 1, the day 

 ' on which we watched during this period, she spent fifty min- 

 utes or exactly one half the time in shading ths young while 

 not a minute was so spent at any other time of the day. In 

 shading the voung she always assumed the same posit'on with 



