GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



surprise in the woods is more startlingly sudden and 

 nerve-tingling than the uprush of an unsuspected par- 

 tridge and his booming flight along an alley of sunlight 

 ahead. Why must it forever be a temptation to pull a 

 trigger? Alas! man has got but little beyond the in- 

 stincts of his remote ancestors! 



The partridge feeds on strawberries, as well as on the 

 berry which bears his name, on checkerberries, false 

 Solomon's seal, apple buds, pine buds, and even on wild 

 grapes. Sometimes the grouse will sit in a tall tree 

 almost like hens at roost, and perhaps you may see them 

 In the early morning, or late twilight after frosts. They 

 are more at ease than hens, however, and negotiate a 

 change of perch with far more grace and much less 

 audible excitement. 



We have no quail in Berkshire County, which is one of 

 our serious failings. When I was a boy in eastern Mas- 

 sachusetts, a half-witted French Canadian was often 

 my companion in the open, because he could sit down in 

 a field by the edge of the woods, motion me to silence, 

 and then whistle "Bob White" till sometimes a whole 

 flock of quail would be gathered on the ground about us, 

 almost like the penguins about Captain Scott's phono- 

 graph on the Ross Barrier. I can still remember the 

 odd thrill of that experience, and my awe of the half- 

 witted youth who had so little kinship with the rest of us 

 boys, so much with the birds. But our Berkshire 

 winters are too severe for the ground-dwelling quail, and 



