. Birds in their relations to man; a manual of economic ornithology for the United States and Canada . e inconstant attendance, so itis clear that there is atleast no diminution inthe food supply after theeleventh day. During thefifteen days that the youngbirds spent in the nest,they devoured not lessthan ten ounces apiece,—more than ten timestheir weight on the day offlight. Another cedar-birdtaken after it had left thenest, and kept under sur-veillance but not confined, took a good-sized black or chokecherry every ten minutes. When given two, he invariablydoubled the time between meals. This
. Birds in their relations to man; a manual of economic ornithology for the United States and Canada . e inconstant attendance, so itis clear that there is atleast no diminution inthe food supply after theeleventh day. During thefifteen days that the youngbirds spent in the nest,they devoured not lessthan ten ounces apiece,—more than ten timestheir weight on the day offlight. Another cedar-birdtaken after it had left thenest, and kept under sur-veillance but not confined, took a good-sized black or chokecherry every ten minutes. When given two, he invariablydoubled the time between meals. This bird was capturedat night. The next morning the character of its excrementindicated that there was little or no food matter in the diges-tive organs. The fast was broken by two black cherries ; thestones were dropped forty-five minutes later. A blackberrywas digested in half an hour. The cherries were given entire,and their large size evidently delayed their passage from theoesophagus into the proventriculus, for the bird stretched hisneck as if in distress after they had been swallowed Photofiraphtd from life. CEDAR-BIRD AT NEST. B4 niRDS t\ THEIR RELATIONS TO MAX. Mr. Daniel E. Owen has recorded^ son:ie interesting obser-vations on the food of a young hermit thrush recently fromthe nest. It ate regularly half its Aveight of raw beefsteakeach day, and probably would have taken as much more hadit been fed at sufficiently frequent intervals. Perhaps themost interesting point brought out was a method of deter-mining the rapidity of digestion in young birds. Havingnoticed that the blueberries eaten dyed the excrement, it oc-curred to Mr. Owen that this fact furnished a ready methodof finding the length of time required by the thrush to digestblueberries. The test was made July 26. At ofthat day, the bird voided while excrement and was fed atonce with blueberries. At , one hour and thirty-two minutes later, it dropped blue excrement mingled withberry
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbirds, bookyear1916
