BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
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The love which the male lavishes uj^on his mate, is none the deeper 
and intenser than that which the sexes bestow upon their offspring. Few 
birdies are objects of more special regard upon the parental 23art. From 
morning until night the parents are constantly on the search for some 
racy tidbit to gratify their fastidious appetites. Beetles, spiders, and such 
like, which are savory articles of meat to a Kobin and Bluebird, are not 
considered fit for these dainty creatures, who must needs be nurtured with 
food of a more kingly nature. Prepared food, as rich, as nutritious, 
doubtless, as the honey which the Brazilian Fairy imbibes from painted 
tulip and chaliced lily, are their portion. Nature does not prepare it as 
she does the nectar of flowers, and offer it up to their toothsome appe- 
tites, but she has endowed the authors of their being with the power 
so to do. Deep down in the innermost recesses of their bosom exists 
a churn, which learned men call the crop, and here it is prepared. 
This tem^ffing food consists of a lacteous secretion and the macreated 
materials of the crop. Its preparation is the work not of the female 
exclusively, but of both parents. The method of feeding is quite inte- 
resting, and after the fashion of the common domestic pigeon. As iu this 
case, either parent thrusts its bill into the mouth of the young, and by a 
process of regurgitation, forces the contents of its crop into the stomach of 
the latter. Nor does their food consist always of sucli a substance, but 
only during the first five or six days of their existence, for at the expiration 
of this time, various caterjaillars of the measuring-worm family, and other 
smooth-skinned larvae, are gathered, and after being completely killed and 
mashed, are fed to their rapacious ajjpetites. When seventeen days old, 
the young are able to leave the nest. They are not, however, ready to 
seek their own fortunes until a fortnight later. Strange to say, the nest- 
full usually contains a bird of each sex — a beautiful and wise provision 
of Nature. 
Having attained to maturity, the young still linger with the j^arents 
in the old, familiar haunts, until the season for dej^arture arrives — about 
the middle of September — when they leave together. It is nothing uncom- 
