180 . LAND BIRDS 
her stretch each little leg in its pantalette of feathers and 
give a few preliminary wing flaps, as if so relieved to be 
out of that dark hole and into the free air once -more. 
But she is hungry, and soon flits down through the low 
shrubs to hunt grasshoppers or small lizards, while her 
mate goes into the nest to brood. He does not always 
do this, I am told, but in the case of one brood I watched 
the male took his turn on the eggs each night and morn- 
ing. I judged him to be a male bird from his trimmer 
appearance and long absence from home during the day- 
light hours, which he spent largely in eating. Often he 
would perch on the top of the nest shrub and fluff out 
all his feathers in a sun-bath, until he looked like a minia- 
ture porcupine. This was his favorite place to breakfast 
also, but I never saw him eat there during the brightest 
hours of the day. These he spent in the shady depths 
of the old pine tree. 
When the young were hatched, — eighteen days after 
the first eggs were laid, — they were covered with a 
cottony down of a soft mouse-color, merging to whitish 
on under parts, the funniest little puff-ball nestlings 
imaginable, in size not larger than a walnut. Grass- 
hoppers and various kinds of insects were carried to 
them by both parents throughout the day. At night the 
mother remained in the nest while the male hid in the 
thick foliage of the pine, but with the sun’s first ray both 
were astir hunting breakfast for the hungry babies. 
