At 9 A.M. I found him at his home place. He popped back and forth through his opening in the fence a dozen times, but would not come farther from it than a few inches. He was talking all the time and in his retreats went no further than a few inches from the hole--new touch with something down on the bank; presumably his unseen mate. When I left he did come through and gather up the food left for him. He had just broken another tail feather. Meanwhile Rhody, encouraged perhaps by the increasing bright- ness of the south-eastern sky, was singing by the north fence, beginning at about 8:30 A.M. and keeping it up until 10 A.M., when he was then 20 feet up in the pine near the N.W. corner of the house. All this time he had wanted no food. It now began to rain drearily. For one hour he maintained his place in the tree, seeking no shelter and watching intently the area below him to the N.W., N. and N.E. At 11 rain stopped abruptly just as I went out to see him and he sailed down from the tree, but did not come to me. Instead he flew over the fence and immediately assumed the "open-bowl" sun- nning pose, although he was not in the sun, but could see it elsewhere Perhaps that sight of sunlight below to the north was the "trigger" that touched off this action. He did not appear very wet. There was no stringiness of feathers--except as to tail--and the back feathers exposed when he assumed sunning posture looked absolutely dry, which they doubtless were. It was noted that, although the sun was not striking him, he was correctly oriented with respect to it. Further, he appeared aware that there was something not just right about the performance, as he kept glancing back over his shoulder at the sky. Naturally he was getting no heat from the sun on his back, seemed to realize it and appeared to seek the cause. At 11:30 thrasher song came from the N.E. I went to Neo's home place; he was not there. I now called to the distant bird from the north fence. The only response I got was one song from the in- visible Rhody, who had been quiet since 10 A.M.; so I looked him up, finding him at last in another pine a few yards from that first one. From now until 1 P.M. he sang at intervals from that pine or from the ground near it, refusing all offers of meat and, when talked to, responding by rattling his beak, rattle-booming or, less often, sing- ing. First full ritual of the sea- son by R. At 1:10 (Thrasher song still to the N.E.) Rhody finally came and stood 6 feet in front of me, but did not want the meat. I surrendered and showed him the red box with a live mouse in it. He came at once and extracted the animal, killed it and, for the first time in the present cycle, honored it with full ritual: bowing low, hrooing softly, wagging his tail energetically sideways and walking about looking for "customers". After 5 minutes he ate it. While Rhody was still in the midst of his rites, a thrasher appeared, mounted a baccharis 35 feet from me and began full song directed toward the N.E. whence similar song still proceeded. From its indifference to offers of food I thought the nearer bird was not Neo, but finally it responded to a tossed piece of Hamburger (which it could see better than the worms previously tossed) and it was Neo. Well, Rhody did "scavenge" the meat, At 3:15 I had another look for the meat that Rhody carried away from the nest last night, as I still had a "hunch" that his act was one of cleaning the nest: a not improbable oc- currence considering that, with the seasonal heightening of his mat- ing urge, his "cerebral vortex" is doubtless a whirl of impulses associated with nests, mates, brood, etc. Anyway, I found the meat!