Bob Whites, Grouse, etc. 



open, beyond thickets where prowling fox and weasel lurk, they 

 squat close together as they can huddle to save heat, and with 

 their tails toward the centre, and their heads pointing outward to 

 detect danger from every possible direction, rest secure through 

 the night and sometimes part of cold and stormy days, the male 

 parent usually remaining outside the ring to act as sentinel. As 

 winter approaches, they leave the open, cultivated fields to with- 

 draw into sheltered thickets and bottom lands, sometimes to alder 

 swamps. Now, when hunger often pinches cruelly, the food 

 scattered for barnyard fowls is fearlessly picked up ; indeed, these 

 birds haunt the outskirts of farms at all seasons, following the 

 pioneer and railroad westward, and ever going more than half 

 way in establishing friendly relations between themselves and 

 mankind. While all efforts to domesticate them have ended in 

 runaways when the nesting season came around and wild birds 

 whistled enticing notes of happiness and freedom, protection 

 from the shooters, and a few handfuls of buckwheat scattered 

 about for them in the bitter weather are all the encouragement 

 these appreciative little neighbors need to keep them about the 

 farm. Like the ruffed grouse they will allow the snow to bury 

 them, or voluntarily bury themselves in it to escape extreme 

 cold ; but an ice crust forming over a sleeping covey often im- 

 prisons it, alas ! and not until a thaw is the tragedy revealed in a 

 circle of feathered skeletons. 



A loud whir-r-r-r-r-r-r, as a flushed flock rises to wing, 

 indicates something of the speed at which the Bob Whites rush 

 through the air. They are not migratory, usually remaining 

 resident wherever found, although from the northern boundary 

 of their range coveys seen travelling afoot in autumn certainly 

 appear to be going toward warmer winter quarters. Rising at a 

 considerable angle from the ground, on stiff, set, short wings, after 

 a flushing, the birds, heading for a wooded cover, are off in a 

 strung out line that only the tyro imagines makes an easy target. 

 Suddenly dropping all at once and not far from each other, 

 squatting close, in the confidence inspired by the perfect mimicry 

 of their plumage with their surroundings, each bird must be 

 almost trodden upon before it will rise to wing. Very rarely they 

 take refuge in trees. It has been said a Bob White can retain its 

 odor voluntarily, since the best of pointers often fails to find it even 

 when within a few feet. When lying close, the wings are pressed 



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