262 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
any. I suppose the site depends much upon circum- 
stances. She will enter a tract overgrown with the 
low, scrubby willow bushes, so abundant in our higher 
latitudes, and settle beneath one of these; she will ram- 
ble along the edge of a wooded stream and hide in a 
patch of tall weeds; she will stroll out on the bound- 
less, bare prairie, and take a tuft of grass at random. 
But wherever she makes down her bed she is solicitous 
to conceal it, not only from the rude glances of men, 
but from the equally cruel eye of her many four-footed 
enemies. Her method of concealment is most artful— 
perfected by its witlessness. With admirable instinct, 
she will avoid a place that offers such chances of con- 
cealment as to invite curious search; her willow bush 
is the duplicate of a thousand others at hand; her tuft 
of grass on the prairie is the counterpart of a million 
others around; her nest will be found by accident 
oftener than by design. And when, stooping over a 
warm nest on the prairie, whence she has just fluttered 
in dismay, we note how exposed it seems, now that it 
is found, we wonder how the dozen blades of grass 
that overarch the eggs, or the rank weed that shadows 
them, could have hidden the home so effectually that we 
nearly trod upon the bird before we saw her. She is 
now but a few yards off, in plain view, amid the scrubby 
prairie herbage, perhaps squatting, but more likely mov- 
ing away with a swaying motion of the head at each 
step. We will not combine murder with the robbery 
we are about to commit, and let us hope she will be 
consoled in time. Lifting up the eggs carefully, one by 
