1435 About noon Rhody was seen making the rounds of the various reflecting surfaces carrying an alligator lizard. This creature had a death grip on its own tail. About 4 P.M. I thought it was time for Rhody to be holding his seance with the magpies, and so it proved; though it was a quiet one at the moment. He responded at once to my suggestion that he come to the tool-house for his mouse. Again he gulped it down without ceremony. (Is this a sign of the wane of the mating urge, as it was last year?) It seems too soon). When I went back to work, he returned to the cage. I took a peep at him occasionally. Each time he was sitting on his shelf quietly but observant. He did not come out again until about 5:20, and then seemed to want company, for he hung around not far from me until I left him, still here, at 6 P.M. In the meantime he had perched on top of an isolated feeding station for seed-eating birds on a pole near the cage, and on a similar one at the oval lawn-- both unusual places for him. He wanted no more mice although he followed me to the tool-house once. He watched towhees and quail feeding near him with obvious interest, but did not offer to mo- lest them. I thought that he perhaps wanted worms. He did, but only a few and would catch only my good shots and let the wild ones go, not picking them up at all. Finally he refused to catch some that struck him on the bill, but he still kept his place facing me three feet away as if still expecting something more of me. What it was, I do not know. Maybe he is studying me! Or perhaps he knows I had just tried to get a mate for him and was expecting me to produce it suddenly, like a conjurer. Or more probably he had nothing else to do. April 15th. to 18th., incl. (R here now three years). During this period I had little opportunity to observe bird affairs at this place. However Rhody was about as usual, making his regular visits to the cage to watch the magpies, and to call upon the neighbors. On the 15th., at 7:55 A.M., I came upon him inside the wage, pulling the feathers off of a golden-crowned sparrow that, I doubt not, he had caught inside, since these and other birds frequently enter. This is the closest approximation I have to direct evi- dence of his having caught and killed a bird in a free state. In this act there may be some light upon the behavior describ- ed in the last paragraph of the Apr. 14th. record. I was puzzled at the time. When Rhody saw me coming he ran out of the cage--an unusual act--as if he had a sense of guilt and feared punishment. In reality, I suppose this behavior may be correlated with his rel- ative "wildness" (commented upon in these notes) when given a mouse in contrast to his more matter of fact behavior when accept- ing meat. In other words: When I came upon him he was still dom- inated by the spirit of the chase and, so to speak, had relapsed momentarily into his earlier, more primitive attitude towards man. He stopped running when I spoke to him and concentrated upon removing the feathers, making a good job of it, although the fas- tidious human animal would consider it still a trifle too fuzzy for consumption. At last he swallowed it with comparative ease, taking only about thirty seconds to accomplish the act. I had thought it probable that he would fail, although I have seen him swallow an English sparrow with the feathers still upon it, as noted herein.