This page needs to be proofread.

Sept., ?9o7 TWO STUDIES IN BLUE I27 thought they had left for good. Then one morning I .saw the mother enter the house again and the father was there too, perched on the wire. He was more at- tentive than formerly. The next day I found a fresh egg in the nest. They had returned to raise a new family. There were only three eggs in the second setting, and all hatched. The two young birds of the first brood followed the father about while the mother was sit- ting. Then when the mother began feeding her second family, I made some in- teresting ol?servations. Her older children began following her about to hunt food, and to my surprise, I saw one of them bring some worms and after the mother fed, the young bluebird went into the box and fed her snmll brothers and sisters. After that I watched closely and often saw the birds of the first brood feed the little ones of the seeond brood. Per- haps the two birds of the first brood were girls and took readily to housework. They may have been learning for the next season when they themselves expected to have homes. One of the young birds was very enthusiastic in helping her mother. Several times when the latter brought food, the young bird flew at her and tried to take the morsel she had in her mouth. as if saying: "Let me feed the children." And twice I saw the mother yield and let her older child feed the younger ones. It was a very pretty bit of bird life to watch these bluebirds. We were anxious to get a photograph of the mother and the young bird 1%iALE WESTERN BLUEBIRD AT NEST-HOLE IN APPLE TREE helping her. We tried by getting on top of the house and focusing the camera on the wire where the birds often alighted. We finally got one view of the two as the young bird was just in the act of jumping for the worm the mother held. ]>orlla?d, Oregon.