1014 The American Naturalist. [November, 
ZOOLOGY. 
How Young Flickers are Fed.—4An interesting account of a 
brood of young flickersis given by Mr. William Brewster in The Auk, 
July, 1893. During three days observation, Mr. Brewster saw only 
the male parent, which, however, was very attentive to his charge. 
Alighting on the trunk of the stump containing the nest, the flicker 
would utter a peculiar call, a low anxious wot or wó-á, addressed, 
apparently to the young, to which they would reply with a burst of 
clamor, and almost immediately their wide opened mouths would 
appear at the top of the burrow. Standing on the edge of the hole, 
the parent selected one, and bending forward and down drove his bill 
to its base into the gaping mouth which insantly closed tightly round 
it, when the head and bill of the parent were worked up and down 
with great rapidity for from one to one and a half seconds, the young 
meanwhile never losing its grasp. These up and down motions were 
rapid, regular, and not unlike those of a wood-pecker engaged in 
drumming. ‘They also suggested the strokes of a piston. If interrup- 
ted during the pumping process, the flicker would often feed the same 
young twice or even thrice in succession, but this never happened 
when the first period of contact was of normal length. 
Four young were generally fed at each visit, with a brief interval of 
rest between the operations. During this interval the parent would 
open and shut his bill, run out his tongue, and work the upper portion 
of his throat as if tasting and swallowing something. "The inference 
was that this was for the purpose of regaining the particles of food 
which had failed to lodge in the throat of the young. 
The time spent at the nest rarely exceeded half a minute, while the 
foraging expeditions occupied from twenty minutes to an hour. The 
flicker's return was so stealthy that the writer, although on the watch, © 
frequently did not see him until he appeared at the nest. His bill 
was always closed up to the moment of contact and there was no evi- 
dence that he carried food in his mouth. In fact, it was clear that he 
swallowed all the food obtained and afterward supplied it to the young 
by a process of regurgitation. Of what the food consisted, the writer 
was unable to discover without killing one of the young, to which 
mode of settling the point he was extremely averse. 
Forsyth Major and Rose on the Theory of Dental Evo- 
lution.—In the NATURALIsT for June, 1893, Professor H. F. Osborn 
