32 TESA UID UIB.O NSB U LEE TaN 
set is complete. Nests containing one, two or three eggs sometimes lie bare 
to the eye of the searcher but are as inconspicuous among the leaves as the 
parent when she broods them. Motionless then, as in a photograph of 
her very self, her whole being supremely centered upon the task of keeping 
still, she desperately holds her place, her purpose weakening only when 
some overt act cf the observer threatens destruction. “The bird was urged 
to leave the nest by touching her, first with a long weed stalk, stroking 
gently, then with fingers beneath her sides. Upon this she hopped exactly 
ten inches from the nest and voided excrement; then erecting her tail and 
displaying it fan-wise she walked slowly away, assuming a crouching posi- 
tion and drooping her wings but making no sound.’’—Ford. 
The young are hatched in 20 or 21 days (in one instance 19 days— 
Richardson). “They leave the nest at once but for several days are con- 
stantly brooded and will be found with the parent within a few yards of 
the spot where they were hatched. “The female, flushed suddenly from 
the new-born chicks, scatters them topsy-turvy in the leaves. Ruled by the 
instinct that motion betrays, they remain in awkward and difficult poses, 
relaxing and trying to glide away only when touched. 
Photograph by Alfred M. Bailey and F. R: Dickinson 
THE WOODCOCK ON ITS NEST 
