greeting me with a wooh-woo-o-o-h followed by whines, I left him (12:30 P.M.) and do not whether he ate it or not. I did not see him again until I found him in the magpie cage at 3:30. He came out at once and came directly to me and sat on a rock about 4 feet from me making what appeared to be an elaborate pretense of being interested in his feet and some flowers nearby (Lithospermum sp?) and the structural features of the rock, craning his neck and gazing at the objects first with one eye and then with the other, but really, I think,--although not looking directly at me-- purposely keeping in touch with me--not wanting anything in particular but perhaps having an instinctive feeling that something to his bene- fait might develop from the association. After this situation held for several minutes I went part way to the tool-house to see if he had mouse in mind. That was not it--he stayed where he was until a sharper outcry than usual was emitted by the female magpie, when he dashed into the cage, only to come out in a minute or two and resume his place near me. I then gave him three or four worms, which he ate, but he was not really hungry. Once again he dashed into the cage at an outcry from the female magpie, again returning to me, wait- ing patiently for what I do not know. In a few minutes more he crouched low to the ground and began a slow stalk followed by a sud- den dash at a Painted Lady butterfly, which he missed. Now follow- ed a long period of sunning, and loafing and preening, interrupted at 4:30 P.M. by Julio's tossing him a salamander, which received with bows, hroos and tail-waggings and then ate. About 5:30 he saw me going in the direction of the tool-house fell in (behind me) and cried for a mouse. This given him, he carried it off (with ceremony) as if going to his old house in the west lot; but he abandoned it about 5:40 and stood in the path half way between the side gate and his house in the gum tree. He had to make a deci- sion here--it was the logical place--between his two houses 150 (?) yards apart. The new house in the gum tree won and he entered it at 5:59 precisely. (Temp. 68°). Now followed an action that astonished me and which is inex- pliable--to me. It may be that I did not observe it correctly, but I do not think so. As he stilled himself in the nest he probed beneath his body and brought up a light gray, fluffy object, which at first I thought to be a mouse that he had abandoned there in pursuance of a recently formed habit of his. Going closer, I saw that it was a tuft of that grayish cotton batting which I had given him for lining. It was about one half as large as an average mouse I give him. He now raised his bill vertically and the cotton began to disappear. Soon, but only after some considerable effort, it had all gone down his throat! But he continued to make swallowing movements. Now this behavior is entirely new in my experience. What was it? Perversion of appetite? Was it in any way associated with his recent abandonment-of-mice divergence from normal? Was it "medicine"--like a dog eating grass? Has he an accumulation of mouse fur for which he wants to disgorge and he "thinks" that this additional bulk of roughage will help? (He has shown no recent signs of attempt- ing to disgorge a pellet). 9 P.M. (64°) Rhody has elected to sleep in his new house in the gum tree--he is still there. Incidentally he did not work on his 2-38 today--or any other nest as far as I know--which is another "unexpectidity". April 18th. Much thrasher song, first heard nearby west of the house at about 6 A.M., then shifting to the vicinity of the old oak. At 8:15 I had been in the garden less than one minute when