When her mate decided to move to another bird table, spread 
beneath the kitchen window, she took his former place and 
demurely watched the flock of other expectant towhees 
perched about in impatient attitudes among the branches, 
in no haste to give them a chance at the food which had been 
provided by friendly hands for as 
At this table, as at many others, a remnant of another 
eating custom of avian life was shown, for not only did the 
female bird take second place at her meal, but no other bird 
tried to dine in company with her. The observer might © 
wonder at the cause of this solitary habit, and think, per- 
haps, that a mate might remain on sentry duty, but why 
should the others stand aloof when by voice and anxious 
motion they were urging the eater to “hurry up?” They 
reminded the visitor of an old-time group of children waiting © 
impatiently for a second table, while the “grown-ups” 
leisurely discussed all sorts of unnecessary subjects as they 
gat unconscious that others were hungry. 
| Such habits change, however, in the springtime when — 
the yawning cavities of the usual two broods of the Oregon 
Towhee have to be filled with food many, many times a day. 
When the nest, made rather carelessly on abit of dry ground 
in any convenient hidding place, is running over with four 
or five members of the first brood, both parents will grab 
as much food as their bills will carry from any available 
source, hurrying back and forth ten or twelve times an hour; 
but there comes a time when the father takes up the feeding 
_ duty for this first brood alone. | 
One May morning this spring he appeared as a boarder 
at the bird table with two mottled brown fledglings so un- 
like himself that one might imagine he had adopted orphans © 
of another species. His anxious carefulness as they stood on 
the table, teasing him with quivering wings and open 
mouths, which showed the yellow edges of babyhood, tolda © 
_ different: tale. Food lay all about them but they had not 
learned yet how to pick it up. Over and over father picked | 
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