362 The Wilson Bulletin — No. 92 



tect any swallowing action when the seeds were carried to 

 the nest, nor could we detect any muscular acting of the throat, 

 which would indicate regurgitation. 



The second item in the food table is seeds which are re- 

 corded fifty-three times. This represents the number of feed- 

 ings in which we were positive seeds were fed, but when the 

 grosbeaks were not seen to gather them. They were secured 

 out of sig;ht of the blind and brought to the nest, where they 

 were shelled and fed to the nestlings. Those recorded under 

 the term unidentified were presumably largely seeds, but as 

 we neither saw them g'arnered nor shelled we could not be 

 positive. The significant thing about these feedings was this : 

 no food was visible in the beak, and yet at a distance of three 

 feet we could detect no regurgitative action of the muscles, 

 but, on the contrary, we noted that the beak moved exactly 

 as in the feeding of insect food. As we were close enough 

 to see the parents swallow the lice and other small objects 

 picked from the nest, it would seem that any regurgitative 

 action could have been detected.'" 



It is possible that the grosbeaks feed by this method in the 

 first day or two of the nestling period and it is also possible 

 that such action as is described above would be called regurgi- 

 tation by some writers. It does not seem proper to me, how- 

 ever, tOi call actions such as the carrying- of berries in the 

 throats by waxwings regurgitative, or to class them with the 

 performance of a bittern or heron in feeding its young. In 

 the case of the grosbeaks as we observed them there was even 

 less reason for placing them in such a class. 



Briefly, the facts on which we base our belief that the nest- 

 lings were not fed by regurgitation on the 185 feeding visits, 

 when no food was visible in the beak, are these : — 



* In so small a bird as the Ruby-throated Hummingbird {Archilo- 

 clius coluhris) Bradford Torry has described the resurgitative feed- 

 ing as a "frightful looking act" (Chapman's Handbook of Birds. 

 Pp. 242). This description certainly applies to all the birds which 

 we have noted in this act, and it would seem that in the case of the 

 grosbeak there would at least be action enough to be detected at so 

 short a distance. 



