watching his every movement out of their eye corners, and
admiring him to his heart's content.

In winter I used to follow his trail through the snow to find
what he had been doing, and what he had found to eat in nature's
scarce time. His worst enemies, the man and his dog, were no
longer to be feared, being restrained by law, and he roamed the
woods with greater freedom than ever. He seemed to know that he
was safe at this time, and more than once I trailed him up to his
hiding and saw him whirr away through the open woods, sending
down a shower of snow behind him, as if in that curious way to
hide his line of flight from my eyes.

There were other enemies, however, whom no law restrained, save
the universal wood-laws of fear and hunger. Often I found the
trail of a fox crossing his in the snow; and once I followed a
double trail, fox over grouse, for nearly half a mile. The fox
had struck the trail late the previous afternoon, and followed it
to a bullbrier thicket, in the midst of which was a great cedar
in which the old beech partridge roosted. The fox went twice
around the tree, halting and looking up, then went straight away
to the swamp, as if he knew it was of no use to watch longer.

Rarely, when the snow was deep, I found the place where he, or
some other grouse, went to sleep on the ground. He would plunge
down from a tree into the soft snow, driving into it headfirst
for three or four feet, then turn around and settle down in his
white warm chamber for the night. I would find the small hole
where he plunged in at evening, and near it the great hole where
he burst out when the light waked him. Taking my direction from