A Wary Mother 201 



fine, self-reliant bird. The chicks will run 

 and almost fly before their feathers fairly get 

 dry. In twenty-four hours they are hunting 

 for their own living. What their mother 

 don't know about bringing up chicks isn't 

 worth knowing. She gives them their dust 

 bath and their rotten wood bath, and keeps 

 them free from nits and lice. She knows 

 what is good for the grub in the head and for 

 all the ailments that chicks are heir to. She 

 varies their diet with berries, bugs, insects, 

 grasshoppers, crickets and lots of other dain- 

 ties, and when they need physic she knows 

 where the berries that they want grow. 



" She covers them with her wings when 

 they are chicks and when they are partly 

 grown she teaches them her store of partridge 

 wisdom, that they may take care of them- 

 selves when the brood breaks up. They learn 

 partly from precept and partly from imita- 

 tion, just as all the young things in the wil- 

 derness do. 



" Night after night they huddle close to- 

 gether, each greeting the last comer as they 



