WITH BROWN PREDOMINATING ~— 29] 
among the thin-stemmed tule-rushes, and on this account 
are much more easily watched than are the nests of the 
long-billed marsh wrens, which live in heavier marshes. 
It is steaming hot inside the thick-walled ball, and the 
eggs feel like little hot pebbles to your fingers. Twelve 
days are required for incubation, and even during this 
short period the mother is not a close sitter. I have 
known her to leave the nest for two hours in the middle 
of the day, trusting to the intense heat of the sun to per- 
form her task for her; and but for the thick, moist walls 
of the cradle, this same sun would have been fatal to the 
bird life within the shells. 
As soon as the eggs hatched in the nest I was watch- 
ing, I cut a slit in the top of it to look at the young. 
They were naked, light pink in color, with tiny heads, 
mere knobs for eyes and buds for wings; each nestling 
measured one inch in length. After this examination I 
tied up the slit, and before I was a yard away the mother 
entered the nest again. Four days later the eyes of the 
young Wrens had begun to open, and looked like tiny 
slits, while a thin buffy down covered the top of their 
heads and was scattered sparsely over their bodies. As 
in the young of the long-billed marsh wrens, the ear 
openings were conspicuously large. Bill and legs had 
changed from pink to light burnt-orange in color. They 
were fed by regurgitation for the first four days and 
doubled in weight every twenty-four hours. (See Fore- 
word.) When a week old they were commencing to 
feather, and in three days more were nearly ready to leave 
the nest. They were now fed on larvee of water insects, 
