took from hand. B shortly gilded down to the ground about 50 feet to the north east of the tree and Bb promptly followed. B went up about 5 feet in a sapling oak and continued full song--an unusually low point for anything but subsong. Two more thrashers came, dug about, then went to B's tree, one of them climbing up and perching just below him. B' then changed to a miniature of the full song that he had just been singing, using the same articulate phrases. This is also new. He lowered his head and began pecking at the twigs below him. The other bird remained quiet for several minutes, look- ing up at him, then came down and went to digging. B then went off by himself and sat in the open on the ground in the old-man patch on the east side of the glade and sang subsong continuously for about 20 min- utes without stirring from his tracks. In the meantime the other thr three were digging and skylarking under the acacias along the north line near where I sat, the youngsters making up evidently for the play time lost by their having been separated from the beginning. Nova(?) left the group and sailed by me down to B and approached him as if actuated by curiosity only. B ceased his subsong, lowered his head toward the ground, crouched, puffed out his feathers and spread his tail, becoming "stiff all over" and tapped rapidly upon the ground with short, rapid blows in "bursts" of 5 or 6 at a time. Nova watched curiously from about 2 feet away edging about to get a better look at him, but otherwise not responding in any way. Most of the ti- time B was back or side toward Nova, never appearing to look at her directly. He was voicing soft, inarticulate sounds and shifting his feet about without changing position materially. This kept up for several minutes, when one of the youngsters sailed down to join the group and B's antics gradually ceased. This is the first display of this sort witnessed here. The three birds then wandered about amicably in and out of the bushes, digging and mildly chasing each other, then went into the glade. Bb had remained not far from me,