4 
Nebraska Bird Review 
(wing chord) - nearest mm 
mandibular tomium - distance from 
the anterior tip of the lower man¬ 
dible to the commissural point - 
nearest mm 
mandible tip (culmen) to nostril 
opening - distance from the an¬ 
terior tip of the culmen to the an¬ 
terior edge of the nostril opening - 
nearest one-half mm 
gape width - distance across the base 
of head from one commissural 
point to the other - nearest mm 
Eight feather tract regions were 
examined closely each day, and if one 
feather capsule had pushed through 
the epidermis it was recorded as pro¬ 
jecting. After the feather capsules 
had projected, they were examined 
each day to determine when the cap¬ 
sule was broken and feather barbs 
were visible. This was called fring¬ 
ing of the feather capsule. 
A feather was measured from a 
certain feather tract each day after 
projection occurred. In most tracts 
one could not be sure that the same 
feather was measured each day but 
the feathers were so nearly the same 
length in an area that this could af¬ 
fect the mean values very little. 
The following feathers were mea¬ 
sured to the nearest mm: 
caudal tract - left outermost rectrix 
alar tract - left, first (most proxi¬ 
mal) primary 
humeral tract - the longest feather - 
usually found in the middle of the 
tract running parallel with 'ttie 
body. 
capital tract - center of the coronal 
region 
spinal tract - longest feather in the 
interscapular region 
ventral tract - longest feather in the 
axillar region 
crural tract - longest feather in the 
mid-portion of the anterior side of 
the leg 
femoral tract - longest feather in the 
mid-portion 
The regions from which feathers 
were measured in this study were 
described by Wetherbee (1957). The 
mean and standard error were found 
for all the nestling characteristics. 
Correlation coefficients were ob¬ 
tained between every pair of char¬ 
acteristics and for each character¬ 
istic compared with age in days. The 
characteristics that appeared to cor¬ 
relate best with age were selected 
and a step-wise regression was run 
to select criteria for calculating the 
age of nestlings. A formula using 
regression coefficients was devised 
to calculate age. Means and standard 
erros were calculated for all the mea¬ 
surements and are given in the 
tables. 
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 
The results and discussion will be 
presented in different sections under 
a) hatching, neossoptiles on feather 
tracts, and appearance of neonates, 
b) growth in weight and parts of 
the body, c) projection, fringing and 
growth of feathers, d) frequency of 
defecation in nestlings, e) eye open¬ 
ing, f) calculation of age in nest¬ 
lings, g) age, appearance and be¬ 
havior of young at fledging, and h) 
adult behavior. 
a. Hatching, neossoptiles on feather 
tracts, and appearance of young. 
Walkinshaw (1939) described the 
skin of a newly-hatched nestling 
Goldfinch us ifiesh-colored, showing a 
dark bluish area in the region 
of the eyes. Walkinshaw (1939) 
and Wetherbee (1957) both reported 
neossoptiles in all of the areas which 
are included in this study as the 
eight principal feather tracts. Close 
examination of 71 neonates indicated 
that three of them had no neossop¬ 
tiles on the ventral tract and 12 of 
them had none on the crural tract. 
The three neonates lacking them on 
the ventral tract were from first, 
second and fourth eggs of clutches. 
