40 Redruff 



Their start in life was a good mother, good 

 legs, a few reliable instincts, and a germ of rea- 

 son. It was instinct, that is, inherited habit, 

 which taught them to hide at the word from 

 their mother; it was instinct that taught them 

 to follow her, but it was reason which made 

 them keep under the shadow of her tail when 

 the sun was smiting down, and from that day 

 reason entered more and more into their ex- 

 panding lives. 



Next day the blood-quills had sprouted the 

 tips of feathers. On the next, the feathers 

 were well out, and a week later the whole fam- 

 ily of down-clad babies were strong on the 

 wing. 



And yet not all — poor little Runtie had been 

 sickly from the first. He bore his half-shell 

 ©n his back for hours after he came out ; he 

 ran less and cheeped more than his brothers, 

 and when one evening at the onset of a skunk 

 the mother gave the word ' Kwit, kwit * (Fly, 

 fly), Runtie was left behind, and when she 

 gathered her brood on the piney hill he was 

 missing, and they saw him no more. 



Meanwhile, their training had gone on. They 

 knew that tlie finest grasshoppers abounded 

 in the long grass by the brook ; they knew 

 that the currant-bushes dropped fatness in the 



