PINNATED GROUSE 227 
fearing that I might accidentally step on one, did not 
search very carefully, and so did not see any. Two 
days later, what I think must have been the same bevy 
was again seen, but about half a mile from the place 
where they were first seen. This time they were in a 
more or less cleared space, and six of the young were 
counted. One or two squatted just where they were, 
and it looked as if one might go right up to them 
and pick them up. I did not, however, disturb them. 
These birds were apparently not over a week old. 
“On July 2 a mother heath hen and four young were 
seen dusting in a road about 11 A.M. Upon seeing me 
the mother ran to the bushes and called to the young. 
As I went by I could hear the mother hen at the side 
of the road in the bushes. The same day in the after- 
noon, a mother hen and one young bird were seen. 
“On July 7, while walking through the brush near 
the Cromwell cottage, soon after sundown, I heard 
some peeping ahead. Getting on my hands and knees, 
I crawled toward the sound. The peeping continued as 
I approached, so I knew that I had not been per- 
ceived. Finally, at a distance of some twenty or 
twenty-five feet, I saw a mother hen with wings spread 
under the thick foliage of a stunted oak. She was 
more or less silent, only occasionally uttering a low 
call, somewhat resembling that of a hen as she calls 
her chicks at night under her wings. The young, how- 
ever, peeped quite often as they stole in and out from 
under the wings of the mother. I think they could 
not have been much more than a day or two old. 
