THE WILD TURKEY. 211 



too often or too loud. You have been duly 

 warned about that, and you think you have the 

 lesson. Like many another lesson, it is easy until 

 you come to apply it. But you believe you are 

 right, and on you go. The chewink trots around 

 you with mincing tread, scratches up dead leaves, 

 and with sorrowful tone, as if conscious he soon 

 must go, replies with his little two-notes to the 

 piping of the robin, whose shrill treble has such 

 a different tone from the carol of spring. Sud- 

 denly there is a faint rustling of dead leaves on 

 the right, and a ruffed grouse comes walking 

 gracefully along, as if all the world were his for 

 the day. Another, and another, and nearly a 

 dozen more but a trifle smaller follow a few 

 yards in front of you. Here one scratches in 

 the leaves ; there one mounts another fallen log ; 

 here comes another toward you as if he would 

 enter your blind ; one stops and preens his 

 feathers, and three or four more flutter into a 

 thorn-apple to see if the fruit is yet ripe. What 

 graceful birds, as they wheel and circle with 

 swelling breasts all mottled with snow and jet 

 alternating with the rich rosewood and mahogany 

 colors of their backs and wings ! Two or three at 



