and disappeared into the shadow of the big woods.

Perhaps that is why I never saw the old beech partridge drink
from the brook. Nature has a fresher draught, of her own
distilling, that is more to his tasting.

Earlier in the season I found another of his families near the
same spot. I was stealing along a wood road when I ran plump upon
them, scratching away at an ant hill in a sunny open spot. There
was a wild flurry, as if a whirlwind had struck the ant hill; but
it was only the wind of the mother bird's wings, whirling up the
dust to blind my eyes and to hide the scampering retreat of her
downy brood. Again her wings beat the ground, sending up a flurry
of dead leaves, in the midst of which the little partridges
jumped and scurried away, so much like the leaves that no eye
could separate them. Then the leaves settled slowly and the brood
was gone, as if the ground had swallowed them up; while Mother
Grouse went fluttering along just out of my reach, trailing a
wing as if broken, falling prone on the ground, clucking and
kwitting and whirling the leaves to draw my attention and bring
me away from where the little ones were hiding.

I knelt down just within the edge of woods, whither I had seen
the last laggard of the brood vanish like a brown streak, and
began to look for them carefully. After a time I found one. He
was crouched flat on a dead oak leaf, just under my nose, his
color hiding him wonderfully. Something glistened in a tangle of
dark roots. It was an eye, and presently I could make out a
little head there. That was all I could find of the family,
though a dozen more were close beside me, under the leaves