38 The Ruffed Grouse 



little necessary physical encouragement to a few, all were finally 

 gathered about two feet out of their one and only home. As this was 

 theii- first physical effort, they naturally tired easily; so the mother 

 gathered them into a compact group beneath her sheltering body 

 and hovered them for their first rest. Thus they left their home only 

 a few short hours after birth, never to return. For such is the way of 

 precocial birds. 



The First Few Weeks Are the Hardest. Birds cannot count very 

 well, and it's probably fortunate they can't. This grouse was no ex- 

 ception to the rule, for ff she had been able to take stock of numbers, 

 she might well have been concerned over the egg that still remained 

 whole in the nest. For some reason, possibly because it had been 

 out at the edge of the clutch for much of the time and was a bit re- 

 tarded from too much chilling, this chick was about a day behind 

 the others in its development. Another dawn and it would have 

 emerged from its shell, possibly as healthy as the rest. But no, it was 

 left to die; deliberately abandoned by a mother who was following 

 blindly those inexorable laws of nature that only the fittest sumve; 

 and the species is what counts, not the individual. Thus, even before 

 it embarked upon its journey into the world, this family had suffered 

 its first casualty. This was only the beginning of unending trials and 

 tribulations destined to reduce the number in the family again and 

 again. 



With a half hour's brooding, the hen again led her young hopefuls 

 on, away from the homesite that held memories of two narrow es- 

 capes. They went off toward the edge of the little slashing, for there 

 the insects would be especially plentiful and escape cover always 

 close by. Progress was slow and the mother spent anxious and busy 

 minutes keeping her charges from straying too far off, teaching them 

 to obey instructions, and showing them how to catch insects. Every 

 little while she would gather them together for brooding, but each 

 time the space between broodings increased. By dusk they had 

 reached the slashing, having covered the three hundred yards more 

 or less in seven hours. Here they hovered together under their 

 mother's protecting coat of warm feathers for their first night away 

 from home, this time beside a tuft of grasses beneath a low hanging 

 hemlock branch. 



They were up and away wnth the dawn, searching industriously 



