Page:Bird-lore Vol 03.djvu/175

 A Chebec's Second Brood BY RALPH HOFFMANN WHEN we reached Alstead, on July 3, 1901, a pair of Chebecs, or Least Flycatchers, were busy in some apple trees in front of a piazza where we spent much of the day. The pair made quiet but constant journeys through the branches, and the trips ended so often in one particular crotch that it did not take long to "mark down" the nest. The four young birds already showed as a bunch of gray down above the rim. Three days later they had left the nest, and for over a week they sat close together in one or another of the half-dozen trees which constituted their parents' hunting ground. The empty nest was now taken down and given a place in our collection. When the young had been out two days, and were being fed constantly by the male, I saw the female fly to the empty crotch, where the old nest had been. In a moment she repeated her visit, and when I walked to the tree, I saw the skeleton of a new nest already completed. Two days later the nest was finished. It was interesting to note that the beginning of the new series of instinctive acts involved in raising a second brood did not destroy the force of the last series, for when the nest was finished the female returned to help the male feed the first brood. While the little Chebec was brooding on the three eggs which con- stituted her second clutch, we had been experimenting with Professor Herrick's new method of bird study, taking Cedarbirds for our first sub- ject. We had cut from a maple the twig on which a nest contain- ing young was placed, and had fi.xed it on some upright posts about four feet from the ground, and very near the piazza. For ten days the prog- ress of the young Cedarbirds, and the actions of the parents, the feed- ing by regurgitation, and the cleaning of the nest, had been a source of hourly interest to a large number of observers, and we had at last the satisfaction of standing by when all four young ones were encouraged by their parents into the shelter of the neighboring trees. On August 6, the three young Chebecs were about a week old; they were well covered with down and their feather tubes were begin ling to burst. I ventured, therefore, to repeat with them the experiment which had been so successful in the case of the Cedarbirds. As the limbs on which the nest rested were too large to cut down, 1 spliced another crotch to a long pole and after fixing the nest into the new crotch, leaned the pole against the branches of the tree, so that the nest with the young came just below the old site. In a few moments, the old bird was feeding the young in the new site. Then, by cutting off successive pieces from the lower cnii of the pole, I lowered the nest to (160)