198 SOME COMMON LAND-BIRDS. 



At a distance, against the red sunset, you call him a bunch 

 of dead leaves; close at hand, if back to you, he blends 

 with the tree trunk behind him ; side to, the dark back clings 

 to the poplar bark, the light breast melts into the pale blue 

 sky; front to, his breast appears a bit of white birch stem, 

 while the dark sides take the color of the thick birch twigs. 

 Every new position seems to hide him and to confuse you. 

 But once find him and, like the hidden animals in puzzle pic- 

 tures, he becomes so plainly seen that you wonder at your own 

 blindness. The grouse knows very well when he is detected, 

 and however unsuspicious he may have been before he felt 

 human eyes fairly fixed upon him, he is apt to become restless 

 or alarmed soon after. Noise he does not mind. Often from 

 the windows of a railroad train we may see them, undisturbed 

 by the shriek of the locomotive, still quietly budding while 

 the train rattles by. Yet, on the other hand, crack a stick, or 

 break the crust, or make any noise in approaching them and 

 they are alert at once. 



The winter night must be long and tedious to the grouse, 

 whether he spends it upon the ground or in some sheltered 

 corner among evergreens. As he drowses in the muffle of his 

 feathers, he hears the harping of the north wind through the 

 thin birch twigs, or the snap and squeal of frozen trees, crack- 

 ing to the heart under the knife of the bitter frost ; he hears 

 on the crust the heavy thump of the white hare's feet or the 

 ring and tinkle of the wind-packed drift, telegraphing the wild- 

 cat's long, soft-footed stride. The wings of his arch enemy, 

 the horned owl, brush the fir bough over him, or he wakes 

 from dreams of summer to smell the warm breath of a fox so 

 near that his terror causes a delay that is almost fatal. 



A light snowfall would have left all the night's adven- 

 tures written in bold head-lines on nature's daily news- 



