The home-coming of a brooding bird, after a brief airing and feeding, is heralded several hundred yards distant by frequent _chips_ and short flights from branch to branch near the ground, in leisurely fashion and circuitous route, until at length, arriving above the nest, she runs down a sapling and is silent. The bird is a close sitter and if approached from the open front will often allow a few minutes' silent inspection, eye to eye, at arm's length, sometimes not vacating until touched, then she runs off in a sinuous trail, not always feigning lameness before the young are out. When disturbed with young in the nest she will flutter off with open wings and tail, and, failing to lead one off, will return with her mate, who is seldom far off at this period, circling about the nest or intruder, and, if the young are well feathered, she will dash at them, forcing them from the nest and to shelter. Once this brave little bird dashed at me and ran up to my knee, scratching with her sharp little claws at every step. On the return the birds always make the vicinity ring with their protests--a quickly repeated _chip_. The period of incubation in one instance was thirteen days. _Young._--Mr. Burns continues: Young fear man soon after their eyes are open, and a menacing finger will cause them to scamper out and away, repeated replacing in the nest proving of no avail after they became panic-stricken. At three days of age they made no outcry but opened their mouths for food, which consisted of a species of white moth, or "miller," and soft white grubs, supplied by either of the parent birds. At that period they were naked except a fluff on head and wing quills, just showing feathers at tips. In the presence of an intruder and absence of the parents, they will sit motionless if not threatened, and, but for the blinking, beady eyes, one might mistake them when well fledged, at very close range, for dead leaves. The head stripes became visible under the nestling down on the seventh day, and they left the nest ten days after leaving the shell, in the one case I have kept record of. The parents keep the young together for several days at least, just how long is impossible to say. One brood is all that is reared in a season, I think.