VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAN. 



55 



have both the time and patience to watch the feeding of young 

 birds for an entire day. Dr. C. M. Weed and Mr. W. F. 

 Fiske, however, have accomplished this feat. They watched 

 the nest of a Chipping Sparrow from 3.40 a.m. to 7.49 p.m. 

 on June 22, 18i)8. The valuable record of these observations 



Fig. 25. — Chipping Sparrow feeding young. 



shows that these two birds, having only three young in the 

 nest, visited it at least one hundred and eighty-two times 

 during that day ; and Dr. Weed says that they made almost 

 two hundred trips, although some of the trips evidently were 

 made to furnish grit for grinding the food. The birds were 

 busy from daylight to dark, with no long intermission. The 

 food, so far as identified, consisted largely of caterpillars. 

 Crickets and crane flies were seen, and it was believed that 

 a great variety of insect food was brought. 1 



A committee on useful birds, selected from the Pennsyl- 

 vania State Board of Agriculture, reported that an observer 

 had watched the nest of a pair of Martins for sixteen hours, 

 from 4 a.m. until 8 p.m., to see how many visits the parent 

 birds made to the young. One hundred and nineteen visits 

 were made by the male and one hundred and ninety-three by 

 the female. 2 . 



1 The Feeding Habits of the Chipping Sparrow, by C. M. Weed. Bulletin 

 No. 55, New Hampshire College Agricultural Experiment Station, 1898. 



2 C. C. Musselman, in Agriculture of Pennsylvania, 1887, p. 105. 



