Threshers were coming and going at the oval lawn while I sat there with my visitors, amongst them Brownie, who came across for worms, but took none away. He was not followed, to me, by any of his brood, although at least one of them was present at the lawn. This one Brownie took considerable pains to run over accurately and then instruct a few seconds in shadow-boxing. June 24th. At 8 A.M. Rhody was lying in nest 5-36. He whine/as I approached. When I talked to him he stepped out as if to come down, but reentered to adjust something about the structure. (There it is again). This finished, he came down, followed me to the shop-yard, but there changed his course, climbed his recently favored pine, went out on a long branch perhaps 30 feet up, where I lost track of him. At about 9:20 he reconsidered the rat subject and honored the sacrifice with full ritual, including presentation at the mirror and consumption at the nest. In less than an hour he was down on the ground sunning, using the spread-eagle pose, since the air temperature is too high for the open-bowl type. This was followed by the usual retreat to the shade to cool off, and so forth. It was noted that he has several brand new tail feathers sprouting. It was observed several days ago, but not recorded at the time through oversight, that, at that time, it was estimated that he was spending as much as 5 or 6 hours per day in preening, and that his attention was concentrated at the base of the feathers from which he was presumably removing the new sheathes. At 10:50 Rhody began gathering pine-needles with an air of intense concentration and interest. These he carried up to nest 5-36. How powerful is this nest-building instinct! While the impulse to reproduce seems to be subsiding, as has been noted, still it appears to revive in waves. It may perhaps be said in "damped" waves, i.e. waves of decreasing amplitude as in an oscillating electrical circuit, but probably of decreasing frequency. This year he was first seen to work on a nest March 10th., although it was already big enough for him to lie in comfortably at that time. The fifth nest of the year: Nest 5-36, was observed under construction April 30th., nearly two months ago! At 11:30 he was lying quietly in the nest, but when I spoke to him, stood up and began to poke about with his bill along the periphery. I suppose, from his long contact with me, that I and my voice, form part of that association in the poor bird's mind, which consists of an inextricable tangle of mice, rats, men, cameras and mates, all hooked on to nests as an inseparable concomitance of the breeding cycle, and that when I appear at a time favorable to action, he "just has to" prod about the nest! I like to think of the act, however, as one inspired by a guilty conscience stirred by the owner's being caught loafing. 1:30 R still (or again) in the nest. Donald Brock called about 1 P.M. and I arranged to go with him to a point 3 or 4 miles from here, near Mills College, where, according to local residents, they have been seeing road-runners since Easter. One of them is said to frequent the garden of a house at 6015 Majestic street and its neighbors and to be seen frequently sitting on a hammock there. R's moult. News of Archie and Terry?