1464 The young thrashers seem in perfect condition, can get their own food (soft food and meal-worms) from the dishes, but like to be fed occasionally with the "squirt gun" nevertheless. They are now a little more difficult to feed with this implement, fre- quently shaking out part of the food if it is not put far enough down their gullets. I get the impression that their gullets have contracted. May 28th. The young thrashers were put in the large aviary for an hour or so and enjoyed their roomier quarters, developing the thrasher sidewise digging technique almost at once. They did not forget their small cage and occasionally ran back into it, finally deciding to stay there. Rhody was not seen until about 6 P.M., when he came for a mouse and took it with ritual to nest 8-37. I was somewhat anxious about him, as I had just heard of a roadrunner being treed by a cat about 500 yards N.W. of here, and attempts being made to catch it. Miss Dougan came to get photos of O and C while they were in the aviary. They were very tractable and readily assumed natural poses on branches where they were placed. May 29th. A thrasher was heard singing brilliantly close to the house at about 5:30 A.M., probably Pon1. He kept it up for about half an hour. About 9 A.M. Rhody was discovered in strenuous sham battle with the magpies, not "pulling his punches" as much as usual and often striking the wire. One of the magpies sat close to the wire and occasionally prodded at R, but not apparently angrily. When Rhody got tired of this game he came out and spread-eagled. When I left for the tool-house he came too and did not think the big mouse I gave him was too large, for he killed it unceremonious- ly and gobbled it without any foolishness, but for a time he looked like a man whose collar is to high and stiff for comfort. O and C were again transferred to the aviary for as long a peri- od as they seemed to enjoy it. When they at last retired to their small cage and seemed content to stay there they were returned to the house. Once Chiisai, hearing perhaps for the time, a brown towhee's alarm call, responded at once and scuttled into the bushes. O, in the small cage at the time, was not seen to react, but I may not have looked in time. As a general rule C is more responsive to outside events than O. I have found that a smaller tube: one that will now pass the "critical" point in their throats, has done away with the young thrashers' difficulty in receiving administered food. About 3 P.M., as I went down the driveway, Rhody was over at the Nichols' new garden sunning and preening. When I returned about 4:30 and sat down near the cage there was shortly a rustle of leaves and R came up over the top of the cage, entered it, had a look into the empty meat dish and came out. I went to the kitchen to get him some meat and he followed, but merely stared at the meat and cried without budging; so I headed a procession to the tool-house and selected purposely a mouse as large as the one