_Young._--The period of incubation is 20 or 21 days. Both sexes assist in this and in the care of the young. An incubating woodcock is notorious as a close sitter and can not usually be flushed from the nest unless nearly trodden upon; often it can be touched or even lifted from the eggs. The young are rather feeble when first hatched and are brooded by the parent bird much of the time for the first day or two. If flushed from her brood of young the female flutters away for a short distance as if hardly able to fly, with dangling legs and tail depressed and spread. If the young are strong enough to walk, she calls to them making a clucking sound, to which they respond with a faint peeping sound, as they run toward her; having gathered them under her wings, she covers them again trusting to her concealing coloration. If the young are too young and feeble to run, she may return when she thinks it safe, and carry them off between her legs, one at a time. Several reliable and accurate observers have testified to seeing this done; some who have not seen it have doubted it. The following account by Edwyn Sandys (1904) seems convincing: The nest in question was on a bit of level ground amid tall trees. The sole suggestion of cover was a lot of flattened leaves which lay as the snow had left them. Perhaps 10 yards away was an old rail fence about waist-high, and on the farther side of it was a clump of tall saplings. A man coming out of the wood told me he had just flushed a woodcock and had seen her brood, recently hatched and pointed out where they were. I went in to investigate, and located one young bird crouched on the leaves. It ran a few steps and again crouched, evidently not yet strong enough for any sustained effort. I went off, and hid behind a stump, to await developments. From this shelter the young bird was visible and it made no attempt to move. Presently the old one came fluttering back, alighted near the youngster, and walked to it. In a few moments she rose and flew low and heavily, merely clearing the fence, and dropping perhaps 10 yards within the thicket. Her legs appeared to be half bent, and so far as I could determine the youngster was held between them. Something about her appearance reminded me of a thing often seen--a shrike carrying off a small bird. I carefully marked her down, then glanced toward where the youngster had been. It was no longer there; and a few moments later it, or its mate, was found exactly where the mother had gone down. She flushed and made off in the usual summer flight. William H. Fisher writes to me: