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 I left as speedily as possible, trusting that 

 no careless foot or knife of the mower would ruin the 

 pretty home. Before I 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 j uncos 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 



