The Water-Ouzel at Home, 105 



after they ought to be finding their own grub. Several 

 young ouzels which I observed on Volcano Creek seemed 

 the most accomplished avian beggars I have ever seen. 

 Not only their voices but every sprouting pinfeather 

 seemed to be saying, " Give a poor beggar something to 

 eat ! " Not the least interesting and commendable feature 

 of a water-ouzel's family life is the fact that husband 

 and wife expect to assume equal shares of the family 

 burdens. How they apportion their duties during the 

 period of incubation I was not able to observe. But both 

 minister with equal assiduity to the needs of the fledg- 

 lings. What is more important, they seem to hold each 

 other to the performance of this duty under untoward 

 circumstances. The following incident occurred at the 

 time when I was preparing to photograph the birds at 

 close range. I had concealed my camera within six feet 

 of a place where they were accustomed to perch before 

 entering the niche behind the cascade. Such close ap- 

 proach again excited suspicion and alarm. For consid- 

 erably more than an hour they refused to carry food to 

 their nestlings. Then the female began to reconnoiter. 

 Seeing that I was apparently only whipping her home 

 pool as I had whipped many another pool in the neighbor- 

 hood, she decided to risk a visit to her nest with a load 

 of tidbits. The distribution must have been made with 

 unseemly haste, for she immediately appeared again 

 through her doorway of spray. She was, however, in no 

 haste to leave the neighborhood, but lit on a boulder a few 

 feet away and warbled the equivalent of a " Coast clear " 

 to her lubberly husband, who was still nursing his suspi- 

 cions on a distant rock in the stream. (See Plate XIX.) 

 He would not come. His bill was full of May-flies. A 



