Mar.,1908 OBSERVATIONS ON THE NESTING HABITS OF THE PHAINOPEPLA 73

always the low song that the male so often sings, but generally it was loud enough for me to plainly hear it at my home across the street. On the morning of June 4th, when I visited the nest the female was brooding, the male nowhere in sight. This morning the female was unusually shy. She moved about in the nest giving her call note with much twitching of the tail and bobbing of her head. It was sixteen days since I first found the male on the nest, but tho I had been watching the birds closely of late, I had seen no evidence of young. At four P. t. I found the female on the nest. At 4:53 she left the nest and with the mate was about in the tree. In a few minutes the male flew away and the female went to catching insects near the tree. At just five o'clock she came to the nest and fed once. For a moment she stood on the edge of the nest, then slipped onto it without feeding again, tho she had swallowed once or twice and her throat had swdled as tho she were going to do so. At 5:12 the male came to the tree and the female left. In his mouth he carried a round, dark substance which I believe was a nightshade berry. As he reached the nest I saw this dis- appear into his throat, come This was repeated four times, ing FENALE PAREN AND YOUNG OF up into his bill, disappear and come up again. when it was fed to something in the nest in one feeding. Then the male took the nest. In half an hour the female came into the tree. She was met by her mate who drove her away. He twitched and called, and acted so distressed that I went back out of sight when he allowed his mate to come back, feed, and take the nest. In five minutes the male came to the nest and the female left. This time the male fed several times, then for one minute sat and just looked at the young before taking the nest. At 5:46 he left the tree; at 5:47 the female came but was driven away by her mate who went to the nest twice and looked at the young. At 5:50 the male took the nest. At six o'clock when I left he was still there. The next day I watched at the nest one hour and nineteen minutes coremeric- at 9:07 o'clock. During that timethemale fed twice and the female three times, the longest interval being twenty-two minutes, the shortest four. The manner of feeding the young seemed not to change from the beginning until they left the nest. As near as I could tell, berries and tiny insects formed the chief part of. the diet. When the birds fed pepper berries, or nightshade, the berries were taken from the mouth down into the neck, and back several times before feeding. In the case of the insects they seemed to be carried in the throat, extending down into the neck, from which they were brought up by a sort of pumping motion, not violent, however, like the finches. Three days after feeding commenced, at 2:30, I found the young alone. In nine minutes both birds came and fed several tim. es, and the female took the nest. In the two hours and twenty minutes that I watched this day the old birds each fed twice, the longest interval being forty minutes, the shortest eleven. On June 15th, eleven days after I first was sure that there were young in the nest, for the first time I caught a glimpse of them. Two gray heads, from which

stuck up stiff bristling feathers that would some day be crests, were visible above