Hunters say that these scattered birds are 

 those that have lost the most feathers, and 

 that they keep to the sunny open spots for 

 the sake of getting warm. Perhaps they are 

 right; but one must still ask the question, 

 what do these same birds do at night when 

 the air is colder than by day ? And, as if to 

 contradict the theory, when you have found 

 one bird on a sunny open hillside, you will 

 find the next one a mile away asleep in the 

 heart of a big corn-field, where the sun barely 

 touches him the whole day long. 



Whatever the reason for their action, these 

 birds that you discover in July are rare, in- 

 comprehensible individuals. The bulk of 

 the birds disappear, and you cannot find 

 them. Whether they scatter widely to dense 

 hiding-places and by sitting close escape dis- 

 covery, or whether, like some of the snipe, 

 they make a short northern migration in the 

 molting season in search of solitude and a 

 change of food, is yet to be discovered. For 

 it is astonishing how very little we know of 

 a bird that nests in our cow pasture and that 

 often visits our yards and lawns nightly, but 



