WITH BROWN PREDOMINATING 233 
fear and ate readily while sitting contentedly on my 
hand. There was no difficulty in inducing them to sit 
for their pictures, nor did the parents interfere. From 
a near perch they protested with plaintive calls, but 
ceased to fly down as they had done when the little 
ones were first discovered. 
On the same day that this brood were found, I flushed 
a mother from her nest on the lawn of the Hotel Tallac, 
not a hundred feet from the main entrance. In this case 
the nest was a little hollow in the ground, lined with 
dried grasses and entirely concealed by the green grass 
of the lawn. It was not near any tree or other protec- 
tion, and, when built, must have been quite exposed to 
view before the grass had grown tall enough to cover it. 
Four eggs nearly ready to hatch were its precious con- 
tents, which [ left as speedily as possible, trusting that 
no careless foot or knife of the mower would ruin the 
pretty home. Before [ was twenty feet away the mother 
had returned to them and the father had ceased his 
anxious cries. 
In this and subsequent broods in the same locality I 
noticed the same fondness for bathing as in the case of 
the Point Pinos juncos at Monterey. No water was too 
icy for their plunge, but they usually chose an hour soon 
after noon when the sun was high, and sat in his rays to 
preen their little brown coats. 
Their food was whatever could be picked up, whether 
crumbs scattered for them or weed seeds or fruit, and 
quite as often insects caught by hopping up from the 
grass or gathered from the trees. The green worms 
