RUFFED GROUSE—PARTRIDGE I51 
ber of occasions I have seen the eggs almost wholly 
hidden by this simple means. 
Most sportsmen know how very difficult it is to 
see game birds when they are not in motion. The 
bird’s feathers harmonize so admirably with its sur- 
roundings—whether these be the leaf-strewn ground 
of October, the bare branches of December, or the yel- 
lowing grass and weed stems of July—that it is often 
almost impossible to detect the bird, even though one 
knows precisely where it is. I recall an occasion when, 
happening to cross a fence which separated a road from 
a mowing lot, I almost stepped on a female grouse as 
I sprang to the ground. She was sitting on a nest with 
thirteen eggs, at the foot of a large cedar. Often after 
that I used to go down to the lot and slowly approach 
the place to look at the bird as she sat on her eggs. 
She soon became so accustomed to me that she mani- 
fested no alarm, and I could approach quite close to 
her. It always took me some little time to see the bird, 
though she sat in plain sight, with only half a dozen 
slender grass stems between her head and me. After 
looking for some time at the spot where I knew she 
sat, the shape of her head, her markings, and above all 
her bright eye, would gradually grow out of the con- 
fusion of the grass stems in front of her and the cedar 
bark beyond, and I could see the whole bird plainly. 
Yet if I turned my eyes away it again took a little time 
to find and recognize her. 
The eggs hatch from the first to the middle of June, 
and the young often number as many as a dozen or 
