Where Town and Country Meet 



ous trail for fifty rods or so, no doubt we 

 should hear him burst into thunderous flight 

 far ahead and out of sight, for he is too old 

 and experienced a bird to be caught within 

 gun-range of a man, whether the man come 

 stealing on like a hunter or not. Once let 

 a ruffed grouse attain to years of discretion 

 say two or three of them and I will trust 

 him, particularly if he be a male bird, to 

 outwit the sportsman in any locality. So 

 far as guns and dogs are concerned, he will 

 survive to a ripe old age; but I am not so 

 sure of his ability to contend against the 

 meager nourishment afforded by much- 

 trodden, cleared, and stripped suburban 

 woods, where scarcely a berry or any wild 

 fruit ripens, that is not already marked and 

 appropriated in advance by some factory 

 boy or girl. 



Everywhere among these scrub oaks and 

 pines the white carpet of the woods is intri 

 cately patterned and traced by the tracks 

 of the long-tailed wood mouse and the 

 hardy, cold-defying red squirrel. Here and 

 there you will see a little brown-mouthed 

 burrow in the snow, where some squirrel has 

 mined for a pine cone, dragged it up, and 

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