File:American ornithology for the home and school (1902) (14727252296).jpg

Identifier: americanornithol21902reed (find matches)
Title: American ornithology for the home and school
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Reed, Chester A. (Chester Albert), 1876-1912
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Worcester, Mass. : C.K. Reed
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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d in nearly all cases that I have observed,that the young whose turn it is to be fed next will have his head thehighest. See the little fellow in front. What a supplicant expression he has.I should judge that he was two or three days younger than the others,but when it came his turn to partake of food, someway or other healways managed to climb up over them so as to be ready. I know thatthe Q^z from which this little fellow emerged had not hatched on theday when the other two did, and one of the eggs did not hatch at all.This one remained in the nest unbroken until all the young had flown. One other interesting feature is shown by the young bird on theright. Notice the double impression of his lower mandible and thesweep between them, while the upper mandible is sharp. This showsthat his head was rapidly oscillating about the upper bill as an axis.This movement peculiar to all young birds is one of the chief causes offailure when taking this class of photographs. The motion is usually
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324 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. a swaying one rather than a rotary, and the result is generally to blurthe picture. The next day I caught the male bird (photographically) as he wasbringing a dragon fly (Fig. 3.) This insect had been specially pre-pared for young birds and was divested of wings and all but one of itslegs. To my astonishment, the male Vireo stepped up and coolythrust this large insect headfirst down the throat of his smallest littleone. About two inches of the flies body was left projecting from theyoung birds mouth and his contortions as he slowly but surely swal-lowed it were painful to watch. It was fully four minutes before thelast of the dragon fly disappeared and the diner settled down in thenest to rest. For about fifteen minutes the head of this particular birdwas invisible but at the end of that time it bobbed up as earnestly andwide open as before. The effect of motion on a dry plate is shown inFig. 4. Here the movement of the adults head is clearly indicated bythe

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