r 



407 



reliable observers have cautiously approached the bird while thus trying to please 

 its mate, and the result was as described above. A similar sound is produced by 

 the vibratory motion of the wings of other birds, such as the snipe, night 

 hawk, etc., while performing their gyrations in the air during the mating season. 

 The Grouse has a habit also of strutting and manoeuvering — much as a turkey- 

 cock does — in a most pompous way. The female selects a retired part of the 

 woods, and makes her nest on the ground beside some log, where she lays from 

 eight to twelve eggs of a dark cream color, and when the young are hatched, as 

 they are after an incubation of about four weeks, they are at once ready to 

 follow the mother in search of ants' eggs, or small larva. The mother is very 

 devoted to her charge, displaying the greatest courage in defending them, and 

 while she is thus doing her best to beat off the enemy the little ones profit by 

 the opportunity, and almost instantly not one of them is to be seen ; the danger 

 past, a few clucks from the mother brings them from their hiding places under 

 chips, leaves, or whatever was at the time most available. 



The food of the partridge consists of the buds of several kinds of trees 

 especially the birches, which fact probably gives their flesh its peculiar and 

 agreeable flavour. In severe seasons, however, it sometimes feeds on the buds of 

 the Mountain Laurel, and then its flesh is poisonous. They also feed largely 

 upon berries, as raspberries, blueberries, wild rose berries, thorn apples, winter- 

 green berries, leaves, and some roots. Its flesh is esteemed a great delicacy, and 

 on this account the pot hunter is not the least of its numerous enemies. 



