32 Bonasa Umbellus, Rex. 



evident that their trifling energies were 

 almost expended long before the cold dew 

 had again soaked and chilled them. They 

 were not so very far from the brush lot 

 where their real mother was, but that night 

 when the two tender little wanderers tried 

 to comfort each other there was not a bit 

 of warmth for them to exchange and they 

 shivered and trembled so that they could 

 not have kept very close together anyway. 

 The morning sun looked down upon two 

 wee wet grouse babies lying side by side 

 in the field. Their eyes were closed, 

 their yearnings had all ceased, and no one 

 would have distinguished them from the 

 quartz stones of the field. Such a short 

 experience with life ! 



All of this while the mother grouse was 

 having care enough with her brood of 

 eight, even if two were missing. They 

 would eat nothing but insects, and it kept 

 the old bird pretty busy scratching over 

 the leaves to find enough for them. In 

 one corner of the brush lot there was a 

 large red-ants' nest, and there the chickens 

 had great fun when they had grown to 



