of his body, peck and retreat again, all with bewildering rapidity and consummate grace of movement. I do not think, however, that he touched the youngster even once and I believe that he did not try to. The young birds are not slow, but Greenie is a streak of light com- pared to them. The young one fought back with his beak vigorously and glared at his parent with what looked like genuine hostility. Between rounds Greenie helped himself to soft food and then returned to the attack, but it was always he that retreated. Neither bird made any outcry and I think if any of Greenie's blows had landed they would have hurt. I could hear his bill snap at times. All of this was within, say, 6 to 10 feet of my chair. Greenie obviously made no attempt to drive the young bird away, and I think that this was a sham battle, intended either as play, or as teaching the art of self defense, and self reliance, to the young. It should be noted that his attack was never pressed to the point where it broke down the morale of his young opponent. Without serious error, the young birds may be said to be 38 days from the shell, half of this time spent in the nest and half out of it. Brownie still feeds them at fairly frequent intervals. They also partake of food from the dish, dig and turn over loose objects and, when they feel like it, will take worms from my hand, but they are still not quite certain as to what they should do with them when they get them and often carry them around for several minutes before swallowing them. This characteristic started the third fight of the day--between two of the young birds. The bird with the wax worm carried it to another young one as if to feed it, the two standing facing each other, one with its mouth open and the other holding the worm as if about to deliver it. However, after posing this way for perhaps a minute, the worm was swallowed by the original possessor, whereupon there was a lively interchange of several pecks between the two birds, followed by the retreat of one