262 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



any. I suppose the site depends much upon circum- 

 stances. She will enter a tract overgrown with the 

 low, scrubby willow bushes, so abundant in our higher 

 latitudes, and settle beneath one of these ; she will ram- 

 ble along the edge of a wooded stream and hide in a 

 patch of tall weeds; she will stroll out on the bound- 

 less, bare prairie, and take a tuft of grass at random. 

 But wherever she makes down her bed she is solicitous 

 to conceal it, not only from the rude glances of men, 

 but from the equally cruel eye of her many four-footed 

 enemies. Her method of concealment is most artful 

 perfected by its witlessness. With admirable instinct, 

 she will avoid a place that offers such chances of con- 

 cealment as to invite curious search; her willow bush 

 is the duplicate of a thousand others at hand ; her tuft 

 of grass on the prairie is the counterpart of a million 

 others around; her nest will be found by accident 

 oftener than by design. And when, stooping over a 

 warm nest on the prairie, whence she has just fluttered 

 in dismay, we note how exposed it seems, now that it 

 is found, we wonder how the dozen blades of grass 

 that overarch the eggs, or *he rank weed that shadows 

 them, could have hidden the home so effectually that we 

 nearly trod upon the bird before we saw her. She is 

 now but a few yards off, in plain view, amid the scrubby 

 prairie herbage, perhaps squatting, but more likely mov- 

 ing away with a swaying motion of the head at each 

 step. We will not combine murder with the robbery 

 we are about to commit, and let us hope she will be 

 consoled in time. Lifting up the eggs carefully, one by 



