56 FRANK forester's FIELD SPORTS. 



of the bystander with much force, but impresses him with the 

 idea, though produced within a few rods of him, of a voice a 

 mile or two distant. This note is highly characteristic. Though 

 very peculiar, it is termed tooting, from its resemblance to the 

 blowing of a conch as heard from a remote quarter. 



" ' The female makes her nest on the ground, in recesses very 

 rarely discovered by man. She usually lays from ten to twelve 

 eggs. Their color is of a brownish yellow, much resembling those 

 of a Guinea-Hen. When hatched, the brood is protected by her 

 alone. Surrounded by her young, the mother bird much resem- 

 bles a domestic Hen and Chickens. She frequently leads them 

 to feed in the roads crossing the woods, on the remains of maize 

 and oats contained in the dung dropped by the travelling horses. 

 In that employment they are often surprised by the passengers. 

 On that occasion the dam utters a cry of alarm. The little ones 

 immediately scamper to the brush, and while they are skulking 

 into places of safety, their anxious parent beguiles the spectator 

 by drooping and fluttering her wings, limping along the path, 

 rolling over in the dirt, and other pretences of inability to walk 

 or fly. 



" ' Food. — A favorite article of their diet is the Heath-IIen plum 

 or partridge-berry, before mentioned ; they also use hurtleberries 

 or cranberries. Worms and insects of several kinds are occasion- 

 ally found in their crops. But in the winter they subsist chiefly 

 on acorns and the buds of trees which have shed their leaves. 

 In their stomachs have been sometimes observed the leaves of a 

 plant supposed to be a winter-green ; and it is said when they 

 are much pmched, they betake themselves to the buds of the 

 pine. In convenient places they have been known to enter 

 cleared fields and regale themselves on the leaves of clover, and 

 old gunners have reported that they have been known to tres- 

 pass upon patches of buckwheat and peck up the grains. 



" ' I\Ti(jrafion. — They are stationary, and are never known to quit 

 their abode. There are no facts showing in them any disposi- 

 tion to migration. On frosty mornings, and during snow, they 

 perch on the upper branches of pine trees. They avoid wet 



