Jnly, 1909 NESTING tIABITS OF THE RUFOUS-CROWNEI) SPARROW 133 how this worm was fed and in my effort to get a better view the bird flew out, a small part of the worm still in the bill. The mate had almost immediately followed the first bird to the nest and when the first one flew out this other one went at once to the nest with his bill filled with a small dark-looking substance. This was fed to each nestling, not with the pumping motion of regurgitatiou, but rather as tho emptying the bill and mouth. The more I study newly hatcht birds the more convinced I am that the supposition that all, or nearly all, birds feed for the first few days by regurgitation, is a fallacy. On the morning of the nineteenth when the young were three days old, at 9:27, I found a bird brooding. The morning was cloudy, with cool wind. The brooding bird lookt browner and I thought had more stripes on its back than the bird that had brooded the eggs. The dark stripe leading,?from eye was also more pronounced and led me to wonder if this bird was not the nmle. One marking both birds had which I did not find mentioned in the description of them: On AI)VI,T RlrFOU,c.-CR)?.VNE1) ,c,I'ARROXV AT NI.;S'I' JI','4F AFTER FEEI)ING YOI'iN'G each side of the rufous crown-patch, starting from the bill, was a light stripe; from the center of the patch-starting, from the bill was a third stripe which, however, did not continue over the head and was scarcely more than a spot. As the brood- ing bird lookt out from the darkened nest and down on me, she seemed to have a striped crown because of this central light spot. At 10:15 I heard the note of a Rufous-crowned Sparrow up the hillside. At 10:23--fifty-six minutes after my arrival--the brooding bird left the nest, slipping thru the grass and making his way to a weed stalk where he preened himself and gave a sharp note, a sort of "sit" that I have heard given by a number of species nesting near the grotind. When the bird had left I set up the cronera about two feet from the nest, cov- ering it with a large green cloth over which I put sprays of sage. With a fifteen- foot tube attachment I could stand, or sit, far enough away so as to be partially screened by the bushes. In twelve lninutes this bird flew up the hillside. Twenty-two minutes later I
