Midsummer Memoranda 



Nor has he any other bad traits I know 

 of, save those his voice gives him. He 

 is devoted to his home, after he has once 

 completed it for himself; and — braver than 

 some others — will not desert it offhand 

 merely because you and your friends, 

 it may be, intrude a httle on its privacy. 



This I can vouch for from personal 

 experience; for the nest in the rose bush, 

 to which I have referred, was not a myth, 

 but a nest I knew; and though my inner 

 circle of amateur ornithologists made it a 

 veritable Mecca for a week or two, creat- 

 ing a beaten path through the meadow- 

 grass to it and all around it by their 

 frequent trips, its owner, the Chat, stood 

 by his little castle just the same and raised 

 his brood of four right valiantly, even 

 beneath their very noses. 



A very common bird-misnomer in my 

 country is that of calling the whistling 

 '^Bob White," or Quail, a Partridge. 



Our one and only Partridge is the 

 Ruffed Grouse; or Pheasant — as many 

 term him here and in the South; and even 



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