1901 



The Atlantic Slope Naturalist. 



Vol. 1. NARBERTH, PA., SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, 1903. No. 4 



THE STUDY OF NESTLING BIRDS. 



By R. W. Shufeldt, J1.D., New York City, N. Y. 



Perhaps a better tirle for the article I am about to write would have been 

 — the study of young birds — as I do not think that all ornithologist?; are agreed 

 as to what is exactly meant by a nestling bird in all cases. With respect to 

 those birds that build nests, as for example, a jay, or a flycatcher, or a hum- 

 ming bird, I consider the nestling stage of the youug to extend from the time 

 of hatching to include the time that it either voluntarily quits the nest, or is 

 forced out of the same by the parent birds. After the bird once leaves the nest 

 and up to include the time it looks out completely for itself, I take to be the 

 subadult stage of its existence. For practical purposes this is exact enougli 

 for the kinds of birds I have just cited, but no such rule can be applied to a 

 great many other members of the class. For instance in plovers, sandpipers, 

 and the like, the younglings also immediately leave the shallow, shiftless ex- 

 cavation upon the ground where they were hatched and follow the mother 

 wherever she may fancy to lead them. Again some birds build no nests at 

 all, as in the case of auks, murres and others, ana simply lay their one to three 

 eggs, as the case may be, upon the bare rock or ground. It is clear that no 

 very hard and fast- line can be drawn for the nestling stage in such species as 

 these. Arbitrarily, as in the case of the Limicol(Z and others, it may be con- 

 sidered to extend and to include the time from hatching, until the bird is fully 

 able to take care of itself. However, in whatever light we may regard these 

 questions, I contend, and I have contended for many years past, both in my 

 writings and out of them, that we have not in this country paid near attention 

 enougli to the study of the nestling bird. It has not received anything like 

 the scientific examination that it deserves or that it should receive in order 

 that the science of ornithology may, as time passes on, progress in an equa- 

 ble manner, and to do this the science should be studied and investigated from 

 every possible viewpoint. In so far as nestling birds are concerned, we have 

 done very little of this in our country. In England they have done more, and 

 when my old friend William Kitchen Parker, F. R. S., was alive, there was 

 no one in the world that plied a more tireless scalpel than he did in making 

 his hundreds of dissections upon immature specimens of bird-forms. Most of 

 these researches were published, and they are of inestimable value, but at the 

 time of his death, he had anatomical work of this character planned out for 

 himself that no two ardent workers could possioly have completed in a cen- 

 tury. His achievements were great and the results will be lasting. 



Work of the kind to which I refer must from its very nature be thoroughly 

 illustrated by means of plates and text-cuts. The figures in many of the plates 

 must be colored true to nature; those setting forth the anatomy of nestlings are 

 often better for being colored, though some may be published plain ; in the 

 case of nestlings' plumages, however, these should be colored with the greatest 

 possible fidelity, employing the most skillful means now at our command. 



In The Auk for July, 1903, there is a very excellent article by Allan 

 Brooks, entitled "Notes on the Birds of the Cariboo District, British Colum- 



