48 Redrujj 



foes in the air : the height saved them from foes 

 on the ground, and left them nothing to fear 

 but coons, whose slow, heavy tread on the lim- 

 ber boughs never failed to give them timely 

 warning. But the leaves were falling now — 

 every month its foes and its food. This was 

 nut time, and it was owl time, too. Barred 

 owls coming down from the north doubled or 

 trebled the owl population. The nights were 

 getting frosty and the coons less dangerous, so 

 the mother changed the place of roosting to the 

 thickest foliage of a hemlock-tree. 



Only one of the brood disregarded the warn- 

 ing ' Kreet, kreet* He stuck to his swinging 

 elm-bough, now nearly naked, and a great yel- 

 low-eyed owl bore him off before morning. 



Mother and three young ones now were left, 

 but they \\ ^re as big as she was ; indeed one, 

 the eldest, he of the chip, was bigger. Their 

 ruffs had begun to show. Just the tips, to tell 

 what they would be like when grown, and not 

 a little proud they were of them. 



The ruff is to the partridge what the train is 

 to the peacock — his chief beauty and his pride. 

 A hen's ruff is black with a slight green gloss. 

 A cock's is much larger and blacker and is 

 glossed with more vivid bottle-green. Once in 

 a while a partridge is born of unusual size and 



