Camp Fire Legends of Wood Folks 329 



follow them. The cock looked as large as a 

 bushel basket. 



" When the rabbit saw what was going on 

 in the thicket, it hurried away and told a fe- 

 male partridge who was scratching for beech- 

 nuts in a neighboring thicket. So the lady 

 partridge went to see. 



" She was so delighted with the perform- 

 ance and with the enormous size of the cock 

 when he was drumming that she went right 

 up to him and began making love to him when 

 he had finished, although she had refused him 

 several times before that spring. 



" But by this time the cock was getting 

 mighty vain of his accomplishment, so that 

 when the lady partridge asked him to marry 

 her, he said ' not much.' He was too busy 

 drumming to think of marriage. 



" They say a woman can't keep a secret. 

 No more can a lady partridge. So when the 

 poor female saw that it was no use trying to 

 get the cock, she told her sister partridges of 

 the wonderful drummer on the old log in the 

 witch-hazel thicket. So other female par- 



