40 The Ruffed Grouse 



When the danger appeared to be past the grouse hen returned to 

 their midst and gave the all-clear signal, a low "puk-puk-puk." In- 

 stantly, as if by magic, nine little fluffy brown chicks arose from their 

 shelter and, peeping joyously, quickly gathered beside their mother. 

 Off they went at a quickened pace, with no thought on the part of 

 the parent to check to see ff all were present. She had her family 

 safe through the first skirmish and she was both thankful and anxious 

 to put distance between them and the source of their trouble. 



That day and the next they traveled across their home woodland 

 to the edge along the fields that sloped down to the farm home in 

 the valley below. Lots of shrubs and briars grew along this margin, 

 and it provided both plenty of food, many tangles and small hemlock 

 clumps for escape shelter. On the way over, during one of their for- 

 aging periods when the chicks had spread quite widely, one little 

 fellow strayed beyond the mother s call. When it realized its predica- 

 ment it cheeped wildly and pathetically, running first this way and 

 then that, in an effort to locate the brood. That night it had no warm 

 mother's breast to keep it warm, and nowhere near enough feathers 

 of its own yet to do the job. So passed the third member of the origi- 

 nal eleven. In but a few hours its tiny carcass disappeared into the 

 ground as the scavenger beetles dug beneath to lower it to their ad- 

 vantage. 



A week passed. The weather had been very kind, there having 

 been only one light shower one afternoon. The chicks easily kept dry 

 during that time beneath their mother's wings and breast. Several 

 times predators had been sighted but attack had been avoided by 

 freezing. The wing-flight feathers were developing rapidly and the 

 chicks were enjoying a new half -running, half-flying type of exercise. 

 By the middle of June, at twelve days of age, they could actually fly 

 twenty or thirty feet if an occasion warranted real exertion. 



Life Without Father. The wind began to whine through the tops 

 of the near-by hemlocks. It was still several hours before dawn, and 

 the brood were hovered under the edge of a briar and grape thicket 

 along the woodland border. In the distance flashes of lightning were 

 visible and the far-off rumble of thunder gave warning of the ap- 

 proach of a storm. It was not long in arriving. The wind whipped the 

 trees savagely as the rain came down in sheets. The temperature had 

 dropped to the vicinity of the lower fifties Fahrenheit. Such a turn 



