16 SHARP EYES. 
then settled down, perfectly motionless and stupid, 
with eyes closed. The parent bird, on these occasions, 
made frantic efforts to decoy me away from her 
young. She would fly a few paces and fall upon her 
breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would run 
through her tremulous outstretched wings and pros- 
trate body. She kept a sharp eye out the meanwhile 
to see if the ruse took, and if it did not, she was 
quickly cured, and moving about to some other point, 
tried to draw my attention as before. When followed 
she always alighted upon the ground, dropping down 
in a sudden peculiar way. The second or third day 
both old and young had disappeared. 
The whippoorwill walks as awkwardly as a swal- 
low, which is as awkward as a man in a bag, and yet 
she manages to lead her young about the woods. The 
latter, I think, move by leaps and sudden spurts, their 
protective coloring shielding them most effectively. 
Wilson once came upon the mother-bird and her 
brood in the woods, and, though they were at his very | 
feet, was so baffled by the concealment of the young 
that he was about to give up the search, much disap- 
pointed, when he’ perceived something “like a slight 
moldiness among the withered leaves, and, on stoop- 
ing down, discovered it to be a young whippoorwill, 
seemingly asleep.” Wilson’s description of the young 
is very accurate, as its downy covering does look pre- 
cisely like a “slight moldiness.” Returning a few 
moments.afterward to the spot to get a pencil he had 
forgotten, he could find neither old nor young. 
It takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods, 
motionless upon the leaves; this sense needs to be 
as sharp as that of smell in hounds and pointers ; and 
yet I know an unkempt youth that seldom fails te 
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