BIRD NOTES. 83 



over her, and thus secured the whole queer family. I took 

 them home, and on the following morning made the studies from 

 which the accompanying pen- drawing was perfected. The moth- 

 er-bird seemed to be oblivious to all but her two hungry babes, 

 brooding them and uttering a low hoarse croak, to which they 

 always responded. The young became very tame, and manifest- 

 ed a degree of hunger entirely consistent with their cavernous 

 resources, pursuing my finger with open mouths whose capacity 

 seemed to reach the core of their being. From whichever side 

 I approached, these two comical little creatures came for me pre- 

 cipitately, with pleading, upraised wings and gaping mouths. 



In the so-called "drumming" of the ruffed grouse, that soft 

 murmurous tattoo by which his ardent lordship musters his little 

 company of willing captives, we have another familiar sound as 

 yet as much wrapped in mystery as the "boom " of the nighthawk. 

 How felicitously Trowbridge revives this exciting reminiscence of 

 the woods: 



"The partridge beats his throbbing drum." 



But he leaves us to surmise the nature of that " drum " which 

 has so long puzzled the world. Wilson, though a professional 

 natural observer, from whom a more specific account might have 

 been expected, is equally non-committal. "The bird strikes with 

 stiffened wings in short, quick strokes," he says, with perfect safe- 

 ty. Elliot is equally guarded in his observation that the drum- 

 mer "beats swiftly downward." Burroughs, however, is more to 

 the point, and assures us that the bird strikes " its own proud 

 breast," which tallies with the authority of Audubon, who dis- 

 covered that the wings " beat the sides of the bird." Bryant is 

 of the same opinion ; so is Peabody, and a host of others, though 

 Burroughs, I believe, later changed his view. 



Earlier naturalists, too numerous to recount, however, have 

 definitely located this mysterious drum, the hollow " drumming- 

 log " having long been considered a necessary adjunct to this 

 muffled roll. Such has been the most commonly accepted theory, 

 seemingly abetted by the bird itself, from its singular preference 



