remains to speak eloquently of the good old days.

It is this element of unconquerable wildness in the grouse,
coupled with a host of early, half-fearful impressions, that
always sets my heart to beating, as to an old tune, whenever a
partridge bursts away at my feet. I remember well a little child
that used to steal away into the still woods, which drew him by
an irresistible attraction while as yet their dim arches and
quiet paths were full of mysteries and haunting terrors. Step by
step the child would advance into the shadows, cautious as a wood
mouse, timid as a rabbit. Suddenly a swift rustle and a
thunderous rush of something from the ground that first set the
child's heart to beating wildly, and then reached his heels in a
fearful impulse which sent him rushing out of the woods, tumbling
headlong over the old gray wall, and scampering halfway across
the pasture before he dared halt from the terror behind. And
then, at last, another impulse which always sent the child
stealing back into the woods again, shy, alert, tense as a
watching fox, to find out what the fearful thing was that could
make such a commotion in the quiet woods.

And when he found out at last--ah, that was a discovery beside
which the panther's kittens are as nothing as I think of them.
One day in the woods, near the spot where the awful thunder used
to burst away, the child heard a cluck and a kwitkwit, and saw a
beautiful bird dodging, gliding, halting, hiding in the
underbrush, watching the child's every motion. And when he ran
forward to put his cap over the bird, it burst away, and
then--whirr! whirr! whirr! a whole covey of grouse roared up all
about him. The terror of it weakened his legs so that he fell