. Nature sketches in temperate America, a series of sketches and a popular account of insects, birds, and plants, treated from some aspects of their evolution and ecological relations . s. On placing oneof the young birds on a smooth table, the mites fairly swarmedoff its body on to the varnished flat surface, where they wereeasily observed. This little bird that I took indoors becamevery tame and learned to alight on my fingers for food. It atesmall grasshoppers, after they were first killed and stripped oftheir legs and wings. This diet, when crushed and mixedwith mocking-bird food, became t
. Nature sketches in temperate America, a series of sketches and a popular account of insects, birds, and plants, treated from some aspects of their evolution and ecological relations . s. On placing oneof the young birds on a smooth table, the mites fairly swarmedoff its body on to the varnished flat surface, where they wereeasily observed. This little bird that I took indoors becamevery tame and learned to alight on my fingers for food. It atesmall grasshoppers, after they were first killed and stripped oftheir legs and wings. This diet, when crushed and mixedwith mocking-bird food, became the staple article of nourish-ment, but the bird occasionally ate youngs, green walking-sticksand small, smooth caterpillars and moths that I captured forit. The bird had no trouble in swallowing these tit-bits. Onfeeding the phcebe a full-grown walking-stick in two pieces, itsoon disgorged it. Evidently the walking-stick presents someunpalatable features to young birds, or perhaps its lengthenedbody was a mechanical impediment to digestion. I kept thetamed phcebe until the fifteenth of September, when it wasallowed to join the migrating throng. ANIMAL BEHAVIOR, WITH EXAMPLES 235. The Death OF THE Yellow Waebler XE day in tlie early partof June, I was verysuddenly startled by themost extraordinary plain-tive screams of some littlehird coming from theyard back of our cot-tage. On running to the opened door, 1 was justftf in time to witness a tragedy to a bird on a brush A loggerhead shrike had captured a yellow warblerand was squeezing the life out of its little body. Whenthe shrike saw me it flew away with ils victim in its feet toanother brnsh pile in the shade of the peach orchard fiftyyards away. It had hardly alighted when a stick which I hadthrown in an attempt to rescue the warbler struck dangerouslynear the shrikes body. This act of mine so startled the log-gerhead that, in his haste to depart, the yellow warbler wasleft behind hanging in a mat of branches. A hasty
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectbirds, booksubjectins
