Biography 37 



cided to make her escape. But reahzing that other hves than her own 

 were now at stake she had to be more resourceful than to merely 

 flush quickly to her own safety. She must also draw the intruder 

 away from her pipping eggs. 



Jumping off the nest and behind the birch, she ran, lamelike and 

 with wings dragging as though mortally wounded, all the while 

 squealing as if in terrible pain. The fox lunged at her but was just 

 too short, and she kept on with her broken-wing performance. Again 

 and again he sprang upon her and each time she would just barely 

 elude him until finally, having drawn him well away from the nest, 

 she flew away to safety. She remained away for a quarter of an hour 

 —a lifetime it seemed— and then returned home with the greatest of 

 apprehension. But the eggs were there untouched, and they now be- 

 gan to show the chipping of the egg teeth of the chicks. She was 

 lucky— lucky that the particular fox she encountered was not wise 

 to the ways of hen grouse and the nests full of delicious food they 

 sometimes leave behind them. 



A Family Is Born. The next day dawned bright and warm. This was 

 fortunate, for many early June days are rainy and rain is apt to be 

 lethal to tender young grouselets. All night long the nest had been a 

 iDeehive of activity. The new mother tolerantly and tenderly shifted 

 her weight, first one way and then another, to make room for the 

 hatching chicks. One after another, the ring around the large end 

 of each egg was chipped complete and the dowmy, wet little creature 

 within pushed the cap back to enable it to shove its way free of its 

 prenatal tomb. There was a continual, pathetic sort of peeping— in 

 fact there had been peeping for a couple of days if one were to place 

 his ear close to the eggs to hear it— as the whole family extricated 

 themselves from the shells. Some of the shells got pushed clear out 

 of the nest to make room for the expansion. The mother hovered 

 them carefully for several hours until about noon they had become 

 well dried. 



She raised herself clear of the nest for the first time since return- 

 ing from the encounter with the fox, the sun shone in on her precious 

 brood, and they first saw the light of day. Stepping just a few inches 

 away, she clucked softly for them to follow. In this, their first lan- 

 guage lesson, the chicks learned quickly for they were aided by a 

 nivsterious and imcrring instinct to react to such sounds. With a 



