382 LAND BIRDS 



or building a new one. Tiie exterior of these nests is 

 made of mud mixed with scraps of vegetable fibre and 

 hair. Inside, it is lined with fine roots, strips of bark, 

 hair, wool, and feathers. For some unexplained reason 

 the nest of this species, like that of Say phoebe and the 

 Eastern phoebe, is infested with innumerable insects, 

 which frequently cause the death of the young. This 

 seems strange in the case of birds that splash in the water 

 so much as do these. One of the first lessons taught 

 the young is the delight of a bath in an irrigation ditch ; 

 to this wholesome recreation they are initiated when 

 about five weeks old. 



The food habits are those of ail flycatchers, — a restless 

 darting out into the air after a passing butterfly, or down 

 for a grasshopper, and always back to the same perch. 

 Nearly every insect with wings is seized by them with 

 equal alacrity, and their capacity for eating is out of all 

 proportion to their size. Especially is this true of the 

 nestlings, to whom food is brought every two or three 

 minutes and eagerly swallowed with no indications of 

 surfeit. Possibly it is on account of this they develop 

 so rapidly, for in fourteen days the weak naked babies 

 become fully fledged Phoebes, with a pretty call, not 

 unlike that of their parents, but which, to imaginative 

 ears, suggests " feed me, feed me ! " And I may add 

 that this is the interpretation put upon it by the father 

 bird. At first the feeding is done by regurgitation, but 

 when five days old the nestlings are fed on fresh insects. 



As soon as they are ready to fly the male takes entire 

 care of them, leaving the patient mother to repair the 



