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THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, NOVEMBER. 25, tl)06.
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THERE Is a marked difference in
the nestling that Is born with a
warm, downy coat and vith
strength enough to start out into the
world, following his mother a few
hours after he sees daylight, and the
little chick that makes his appearance
from the egg blind, naked and help
less. For the most part,- the nestlings
of grouse, quail, sandpipers, rails,
ducks, geese and other Bame birds are
able to leave the nest a few hours after
they are hatched. The shell from
which these, chicks emerge has con
tained enough nutriment to give the
nestlings two or three days' start in
the world. The parents do not have
to feed them, but they must be hovered
and kept warm. Warmth is the es
Kcntial thing, and the young are soon
strong enough to pick up food for
themselves. 1
In the large class of birds known as
perchers, the nestlings have .to be care
fully fed and nursed for two or three
weeks before they acquire a coat of
feathers and are able to leave the
home. For the first few days these
nestlings are fed only the softest and
most nutritious food. In the place of
milk, as in animals, the naked nest
lings receive the partially digested
food of the parenfs crop. In the early
stages of life they are fed almost en
tirely by what is known as the process
of regurgitation. In some birds this
method is used until the nestlings are
full grown and even after they have
left the nest, while in others tt is used
only a day or so, until the bantlings
are able to digest more solid food.
Where rcgurgitatlve feeding continues
It is often used as a convenience, not a
necessity.-
I have often noticed that in almost
all the songsters, as well as in many
other birds, the ability to regurgitate
the food. Or vomit It up from the craw,
comes as naturally in feeding the
young as It does for the parent to carry
the food In her bill and place it
Immediately in the mouth ot the
nestling. I have found that war
blers and chickadees when feeding their
young, generally collect as much as
they can in the bill alone and return
every few minutes to the nest; while
many of the seed-eating birds often
collect the food and swallow It and this
enables them to gather a larger amount
before returning to the nest to feed.
In such cases the craw is merely used
as a carrier of food, and not because
the nestlings need a pre-digested din
ner. The humming-bird and the flicker
are two examples of birds that feed
their young by regurgitation, not only
while they are In the naked state, but
after they have left the nest, and are
not fully able to care for themselves.
I have watched both of these species
bring food to" their young when you
could see them holding particles in
their bills; but generally there Is no
indication of a dinner, for the morsels
are swallowed by the parents and then
pumped Into the stomachs of the little
ones.
The feeding of young humming
bird by its parent is a frightful-looking
process. The mother inserts her dagger-like
bill clear into the stomach of
her nestling and then starts a pumping,
or what looks like a stabbing process,
until she literally Injects him full of
food. Her feeding would not resem
ble the murder of the Infants so much
if she were to go slowly and carefully,
but she seems so rough and goes with
such lightning speed. I thought the
sight was bad enough ob I saw her
feed the tiny midgets when they were
little larger than an ordinary bean, but
it was even worse after the youngster
nad lert the nest and was sitting on
the clothesline. She went at him like
a madman. He opened his mouth and
she Jabbed her bill in clear up to the
"nilt, then there was such a shaking and
wiggling that they could hardly keep
balanced. But the midget liked It. for
he seemed to hold on to his mother's
bill till she had trouble in. drawing it
out he was bound to have the last
drop. In a twinkling she was off and
lie flashed at her heels squeaking for
more.
I had little idea of Just the amount of
food a small bird collects for its young
until I watched, with note-book In
hand, for days at a time at different
birq homes. During the two weeks
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BY WILLIAM L.FINLEY;
HERMAN TBALMAN
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CHICKADEES
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when ' young birds are growing from
the egg to full feathers, they require
a great deal of food for such rapid
growth: and where the nest contains
from five to eight growing appetites,
the parent birds, on an average, feed
every few minutes during the day. In
a case where a careful record was
kept, a young bird ate over half its
own weight in food each day. In an
other case, during the fifteen days that
the young birds remained In, the nest,
they had eaten ten times their weight
on the day of flight.
By far the greater part of the food
the nestlings ' receive is composed of
Insects and svems. I.ast summer In an
old orchard we found Ave different
species nesting within a few yards of
each other. A robbln that built In an
apple tree fed the young on cut-worms,
angle-worms and Insects until the
nestlings were quite -well grown, and
then the diet was changed to berries
and cherries. In an oriole's nest near
by, the young birds were fed for the
first few days by regurgitation; then
the parents began carrying green cater
pillars, wire-worms and occasionally
cherries, but fruit seemed to be given
more as a dessert. For three years we
have watched a wood pewee build Its
nest on the limb of a pear tree in the
same identical spot. The storms of
Winter always destroy the old nest,
nnj each time a new one has been built
from the foundation up. The food of
the pewee - consists largely of flies,
spiders and moths. The other two
bitds th.it nested near were a yellow
warbler and a Parkman's wren. These
two sung-stera lived entirely on bugs
and harmful insects; they searched
every tree and bush, turned every leaf
and pried into the crannies and cracks.
It would be difficulty to estimate the
real value of a few birds to an orchard,
but it is safe to say that these rive spe
cies destroyed untold thousands of de
structive insects and larvae, and more
than paid for the little fruit that the
birds might destroy in a dozen different
seasons.
I have watched at some nests where the
young were cared for almost entirely
by the female, and I have seen others
where' those duties were taken up large
ly by the male. Many times I have seen
both parents work side by side in rear
ing a family, but I never before saw
the work divided as it seemed to be in
a family of black-headed grosbeaks that
we watched last summer. The first day
we stayed about the nest. I noticed that
the father was feeding the children al
most entirely. The mother fed only
about once an hour, while he fed every
ten or fifteen minutes. This seemed
rather contrary to my understanding of
bird ethics, for the male is generally
wilder and the female has to take the
responsibility of the home. The next
day conditions -ere the same, but I was
surprised to see that the parental duties
were Just reversed. The mother was
going and coming continually with food,
while the father sat about in the tree-
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tops, sang and preened his feathers lei
surely, only taklng the trouble to hunt
up one mouthful for his bairns to every
sixth or seventh his wife Brought. To
my surprise, the third 7dav I found the
father was the busy bird again. Out
of the 18 plates exposed that day on the
grosbeak family we got only five snaps
at the mother and three of thee were
poor ones. The fourth day we were
about the nest, it was the mother's turn
at supplying the meals, but she spent
most of her time trying to coax the
bantling to follow her off into the bushes.
The father brought in food about as often
as the mother, otherwise the youngsters
would hardly havd received their daily
allowance.
Nature has given the grosbeak a large
and powerful bill to crack seeds and
kernels, and at first I thought this would
be rather an inconvenience when it came
to feeding the children. If it was. the
parents did not show it. The mother
always cocked her head to one side
so her chick could easily grasp the mor
sel, and it was all so quickly done that
only the camera's eye could catch the
way she did it. She slipped her .bill
clear into the youngster's mouth, and
he took the bite as hurriedly as if he
were afraid she would change her mind
and give it to the next one.
Among the hawks, owls and eagles, the
nestlings are fed from the prey that is
brought in by the parents and torn into
bits. Visiting the aery of a golden eagle
a few days after the young had hatched,
we found the headless bodies of four
ground squirrels lying on the rim of the
nest, from which the parents had been
feeding the downy young. The nestlings
soon learned to follow the example of
the old birds, and as thej gained strength
they tore their own meals from the
birds and animals that were brought in.
We found after a number of visits that
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the bill of fare at the eagle's aery con
sisted almost entirely of ground squirrels,
with an occasional variation, including
rabbit, quail and snake.
In a study we made of a red-tailed
hawk in a tall cottonwood on the banks
of- the Columbia River, . the nestlings
were fed on quail, pheasants and small
rodents. One day we found the legs and
claws of a screech-owl in the nest, show
ing that the red-tail is no respecter of
birds, but sometimes descends to a case
of hawk eat hawk. In the early part
of the summer when the Columbia over
flowed its banks and covered the sur
rounding lowland, the red-tails took to
fishing entirely, and fed their nestlings
on .the carp and cat-fish that are so
plentiful, and which they had no trouble
in catching about the edges of the ponds
and lakes.
We made a number of trips to a large
heronry to study the nesting habits of
these long-legged fishers. One day as I
sat in the tree top watching, a great blue
heron sailed in and lit on the branch
above her nest in the adjoining tree.
There were three young in the nest, and
they twisted in ecstatic contortions as
the mother stepped awkwardly along the
limb. Each reached up its full height to
grasp her long bill. She sat on the nest
edge, calmly looking about. The young
continued to catch her long beak and pull
it down, endeavoring to make her feed
them. The mass of undigested fish in her
craw seemed to form into small portions
and come up as the cud of a cow does.
She disgorged a fishy mess down the
throat of each nestling and left as leis
urely as she came. In another case,
where the young were older, the mother
disgorged into the nest, and each young
ster pitched into the mess with a vigor
and energy that would have amazed a
litter of young pigs.
When one climbs anywhere near the
nest, after the youngsters have had a
good meal, they will begin to Vunswal
low" as fast as they have, gobbled It
down. On account of this habit, espe
cially common among the young night
herons. It is always safe to keep out of
the way as much as possible, or at least
not approach a nestful of young birds
from below.
A few years ago we made two trips off
the Oregon coast to some rocks to make
a study of the sea fowl. The gulls and
cornorants were feeding young, and they
always came with good cropfuls of flah,
which were vomited up for their nest
lings. The murros generally came from
the feeding ground with fish protruding
from their bills. Among the Leach's pe
trels, that nest in burrows underground,
family affairs are somewhat different.
The petrel is a bird that is never seen
about the rock In daytime. It gathers
Its food from the sea-surface miles out
from shore. During the period of incu
bation, the male and female alternate in
the duties of hatching and brooding the
young, one or tne parents stays in the
burrow- with the nes'Jing all day long,
while the other is at sea. Then at dusk
the flock of returning petrels sweeps in
from the far-away feeding, ground like a
swarm of bats, and the birds change
places in the nost holes.
The petrel nestling Is fed during the
day by the parent thrusting the beak
down its mouth and injecting with it
a yellowish fluid. The old birds are ex
pert at this, for If you dig one out of
Ills "burrow, he will immediately "play
Jonah" in your direction with surprising
power of projection.
WILLIAM L. KINLET.
The Wages of Sin
Today's International Sunday School Les
son Is "The World's Temperance Sunday"
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
THE uncrowning of a man is tragedy,
the uncrowning of a nation Is a
world disaster. This story deals
with both.
Once a year the attention of all Protes
tant churches everywhere on the globe
is directed to the subject of temperance
in its broader relations. The last Sunday
in November is designated- as "World's
Temperance Sunday," and the regular
course of international Sunday school
lessons is Interrupted to make way for it.
The study is less a study of a Scripture
passage than of a topic. Yet the passage
chos-en for this week is especially apt.
Many times the word "woe" occurs in
it. The prophet Isaiah Js setting forth the
uncrowning of Israel and Judah by the
excess of strong drink and theu ncrowning
of individuals'. They had abdicated their
independence and self-sovereignty so that
only a remnant was left to wear the
"crown of glory."
The old prophet was a big man with
wide vision, and instead of devoting him
self exclusively to individual drunkards
though he doubtless did his share of the
latter he took a national outlook and
portrayed the condition of the two He
brew kingdoms. The same Is a hint for
the present treatment of the temperance
topic, which has too long been considered
In a picayune fashion.
The National conception of the much
mishandled temperance question Is the
one for the present hour. In Great
Britain It Is becoming a national issue;
the physical degeneracy of the people, the
increasing congestion of London's slums
and the decline of trade are' all allied
to John Bull's love of his pot of spirits.
William Stead has said that "commercial
supremacy goes out at the bunghole."
Socially and economically considered, the
drink question is also a National issue In
the United States and Canada. It is
steadily pressing to the fore from every
angle. That it is indissolubly connected
with the problem of bad citizenship Is
everywhere recognized. Steps have al
ready been taken in almost every stale
and province to withdraw the saloon from
politics; and some have resorted to the
extreme measure of total prohibition, pre
dicting that this will be the ultimate Na
tlonal remedy.
Shrewd observers are pointing out that
public Interest is being Increasingly cen
tered upon, the liquor traffic. Public at
tention is being focused upon what was
once the province of a few earnest re
formers. Consequently there are not
wanting temperate students of the time
who declare that the next radical Na
tional reform to be effected will be along
the line of the abolition, or the great
restriction, of the sale of liquor.
As the Japanese made a stubborn, vigor
ous and varied assaut upon Port Arthur,
so, with a single aim, very divergent
forces have been at work in many differ
ent ways to overthrow the drinking cus
toms of ages. There is first the open
assault and direct charge of the regular
temperance army, with all Its divisions
and weapons, its big guns and its small
arms. These have taken position after
position, and have been in the stress of
hand-to-hand conflict. They are the main
reliance of the besiegers.
The sappers and miners have been at
work also by a patient process of educa
tion tunnelling under the very founda
tions of the mighty institution. More
than one mine has been exploded with
disastrous results by these skilled war
riors. The fleet of literature has bom
barded the forts from where it rides
in the offing. Great authors and modern
newspapers alike have poured hot shot
into the liquor camp. '
Deprivation. has been at work as a tem
perance ally. Society has deprived the
liquor-dealer and the drinker of Its ap
proval. Great . commercial institutions,
railways and such like have closed their
doors to strong drink. The most eminent
periodical publications In the land refuse
to admit to their columns the advertise
ments of spirituous liquors. So the siege
goes on, with the besieged growing in
creasingly concerned. And one does not
have to be hostile to the interests of the
liquor men to perceive that their Port
Arthur seems doomed to fall. God has
been keeping school through many centu
ries, teaching nations and individuals. He
never graduates his scholars until they
have learned their lessons, though he fre
quently expels the incorrlgibles. But first
he tries to woo them to wisdom by gentle
ness and lovf. Failing that, he uses the
rod, even as Israel was punished by the
Assyrian flail.
So he is still teaching us. Intemperance
to linked to evil, always and everywhere.
Strong drink and hard times go together.
So do drink and physical suffering. The
saloon and the prison are cause and effect,
likewise the saloon and the asylum. Dis
grace, shame, poverty, and sorrow all fol
low in the wake of the bottle. Surely this
should teach men to shun drink. But it
does not. The beneficent teacher puts the
thorn of suffering on .the rose of sin. but
men need not the pain or the blood.
Neither Israel nor America could be
moved by the clear monitions of God re
garding drunkenness: Were we not as
sured that thedrinking customs of the
day are diminishing instead of increas
ing we should have to predict for the
great' Christian nations of the present the
fate of Ephriam of old.
Isaiah became most outspoken and in
tense when he dealt with the chosen peo
ple, his own Judah. Even the priest and
the prophet were not spared. His picture
of the unclean environment of a drunken
debauch grates on the nerves of those
who dislike evil less than they dielike
the plain truth about it. As a matter of
fact, intoxication is never so disgusting
and pitiable as when indulged In by per
sons of breeding. In the elums of many
great cities I have seen the drunkard
fulfilling the part of a beast, but in none
of these has drunkenness appeared so
loathsome and sickening as I once saw
it after a wedding breakfast on West
Spruce street, Philadelphia, when the
champagne had done Its work with both
men and women.
A drunken preacher Is almost unheard
of In this land and today, though Isaiah's
fierce condemnation of such is quite com
prehensible. The people expect better of
their religious leader than they do them
selves.' There were no denominational lines
and no secular or religious, in the out
cry from all parts of the country over
the well-meant action of a conspicuous
prelate In publicly sanctioning a new sa
loon. Daily newspapers vied with tem
perance organs in holding the Nation up
to scorn. .
For the most part the pulpit has as
sumed advanced ground on the temper
ance question. Not only does it practice
and priuch total abstinence, but it is
quite generally committed to the cru
sade for the total extinction of the liquor
traffic. Still, it may be said that the
greatest need of the present day temper
ance cause Is a clear, consistent, persist
ent and unequivocal message -from the
f Christian pulpit. Unless the prophets of
God warn the people they themselves
share the sin. Put an Isaiah in every
church in America and the conditions in
respect to strong drink, which are little
short of a National dtsgrace, would be
changed within five years.
The familiar wards. "Precept upon pre
cept, precept upon precept, line upon line,
line upon line; here a little, there a lit
tle." are employed by the prophet to
express how Jehovah had been teaching
his people Jn endless and varied ways the
one great truth. Possibly It will not be
amiss to indicate here "line upon line"
some modern instances directed toward
the one end. t
The good times of the drunkard make
the bad times of his family.
The great Presbyterian Church in the
United States of America has employed a
temperance evangelist to arouse its mem
bers to a keener Interest in the temper
ance cause.. ,
I have seen boys swimming on the edge
ot the Niagara whirlpool, and I have
seen young men with, an inherited appe
tite for liquor playing "moderate drinker."
During period in which the popula
tion of Scotland has increased 49 per cent
the number of alcoholic lunatics has in
creased 180 per cent.
Every man who knows life understands
that Intemperance Is linked to every other
vice, and Is the handmaiden of them all.
Seven Sentence Sermons
For a web begun God sends thread Old
Proverb.
"Happiness Is not the end of duty, H Is
a constituent to It."
. So long as you do not quarrel with sin
you will never be a truly happy man.
Ryle.
What doth the Lord require of thee, hut
to deal justly, and to love mercy, and to
walk humbly with thy Uod? Bible.
Man is one world and has
Another to attend him.
Herbert.
As one lamp lights another, nor grows
less.
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.
Lowell.
God gives us alwayn strength enough
and sense enough for what he wante us to
do; if we either tire ourselves or puzzle
ourselves, It Is our own fault. Ruskin.