YELLOW OR ORANGE CONSPICUOUS 511 



From the very first they are fascinating, pinkish salmon 

 babies, without feathers or down, except a very little 

 patch on the head and shoulders, and a thin dark strip 

 on either side of the back. Developing very rapidly on 

 the diet of water-snails, slugs, and slimy water larvse of 

 all sorts, on which they are fed by regurgitation at first, 

 they soon become handsome enough in their soft brown 

 coats to delight any father's eyes. Their bills change 

 from buif to black, and the inside of the throat becomes 

 an exquisite rose-pink. Nor are their heads bare, as is 

 the case with young red-wings. In two weeks or sixteen 

 days after hatching they are ready to leave the nest, and 

 now it is the father who coaxes them step by step back 

 through the rushes to the safer meadow and teaches 

 them how to find their own food. As soon as they learn 

 this they become very independent and, leaving their 

 parents, join flocks of other young Yellow-heads, who, 

 with a few adults, keep together the rest of the sum- 

 mer and through the fall and winter. They scatter over 

 the valleys, wherever the food supply tempts, chatter- 

 ing, frolicking, and gradually donning adult plumage 

 until, when spring calls again, they are off en masse to 

 marshland. 



501b. WESTERN MEADOWLARK.— 5ter«e//a 



neglecta. 



Family : The Blackbirds, Orioles, etc. 



Lmigth: Male 8.31-10.14 ; Female 7.74-9.00. 



Adult Male : Upper parts grayish brown, streaked and barred with buffy, 

 white, and black ; crown with median buffy white stripe ; lores yel- 



