Nov., 1904 I THE CONDOR 147 
or as if he were practising, just running over the keys of an air that hung dim in 
his memor)'. But it w'as pleasing to hear him practise; the atmosphere was too 
lazy to call for perfect execution. 
The morning of July sixth, the three young birds left the nest, following their 
parents out into the limbs of the surrounding bushes. They were not able to fly 
more than a few feet but they knew how to perch and call for food. I never heard 
a more enticing dinner song. It was such a sweet, musical “tour-a-lee.” 
The parents fed their bantlings as much on berries as on worms and insects. Once 
I saw the father distribute a whole mouthful of green measuring worms. The 
next time he had visited a garden down the hillside, for he brought one raspberry 
in his bill and coughed up three more. Both birds soon got over their mad anxiety 
every time we looked at the youngsters. In fact, they soon seemed willing enough 
FEMALE GROSBEAK AT NEST 
to have the birdlings share the bits from our own lunch. 
We spent the next two days watching and photographing. It took all the 
next morning, however, to find the three bantlings. The mother had enticed one 
down the creek to some hazel bushes. I watched her for two hours before I heard 
the soft whistle of the youngster. He perched on my finger and I brought him 
back to the nest. Another was found down in the tbimbleberry bushes. This one, 
with the third up in the maple saplings over the nest, seemed to be in the keeping 
of the father. 
After watching them all day we put them in a little isolated clump of bushes 
late in the afternoon, and when w’e went early the next morning they were still 
there but perched well upon the top limbs. The parents had become quite tame, 
and paid little attention either to the camera or to us. By the fourth day, how- 
