An interesting case of nest-protecting display is thus described by Dr. Robert Cushman Murphy (1926): She (assuming that it was the female) would allow us to come within a few feet before leaving her well-concealed position. Then she would spring from the nest, pitch on the ground close by, and, standing with the tail toward us, would raise and spread it so as to show to full advantage the double row of glistening white spots at the ends of the rectrices and under coverts. Next, flashing this striking banner slowly, she would move off among the trees in the attitude of a strutting turkey cock, stopping when we refused to follow, and then tripping ahead for a few steps, all the while bleating softly. The effect was astonishing; the ordinary low visibility of a woodcock against the forest floor no longer held, for the spotted fan of the tail had become a most conspicuous and arresting mark. _Eggs._--The American woodcock lays four eggs, sometimes only three, and rarely five. They vary in shape from ovate to rounded ovate and have a moderate gloss. The ordinary ground colors vary from "pinkish buff" to "cartridge buff" and in certain brown types from "pinkish buff" to "cinnamon." They are usually rather sparingly and more or less evenly marked with small spots, but sometimes these spots are concentrated about the larger end. In the lighter types, which are the most common, there are often many large blotches of light shades of "vinaceous drab" or "brownish drab"; these are conspicuous and often predominate. Mixed with them are numerous small spots of light browns, "cinnamon," "clay color," or "tawny olive." In the brown types these spots are in richer browns, "hazel," "russet," or "cinnamon brown," with the drab spots less conspicuous. The measurements of 53 eggs, in the United States National Museum, average 38 by 29 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =41= by =30= and =35= by =27.5= millimeters.