Abstract
The time budget of the parent Bengalees for taking foods consisted of the seed of the foxtail millet and the leaf of the cabbage for the nestlings was studied.
The time spent in taking one gram dry weight of the artificially husked seeds of the millet was 15.3 min. and the time spent in taking the same amount of cabbage leaves was 162.6 min. The pattern of change in the total time spent by the parents for feeding nestlings per day was different from that in the total amount of food. The above time increased till the 13th day, after that the increase ceased in spite of the increment of the total amount of food fed to the nestlings, owing to the pattern of the change in the amount of cabbage leaves fed and to the more time consumed in taking the unit dry weight of cabbage leaves than in taking millet seeds.
The total amounts of time usable for the parents other than for feeding for themselves and for brooding were estimated. The ratio of the amount of time spent in taking foods for nestlings to the total amounts of time above mentioned increased monotonously for several days but afterwards the increase almost ceased.
