214 Life and Tnimortality. 
AMERICAN WOODCOCK. 
Mother Flying Away With Young Between Her Fect. 
turns to the task of sitting until success has crowned their 
willing labors. The time spent in hatching is, under the most 
favorable conditions, from seventeen to eighteen days, 
The young are very timid creatures and keep close to 
their parents. Considerable solicitude is shown by the latter 
for their well-being. Their helpless infancy, so to speak, is 
watched over with all the care that a human mother bestows 
upon her offspring, and when their lives are endangered re- 
course is had to many a vase to deceive their enemies and 
bring them into places of security. When severely pressed 
by foes, the mother, by a peculiar alarm, warns them of the 
state of things, and while they are scattering in different 
directions seeks to attract attention to herself in many a 
well-feigned artifice. In her anxiety for their safety, she has 
