264 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



teresting to witness the watchful solicitude with which 

 they are cherished by the parent when she first leads 

 them from the nest in quest of food, glancing in every 

 direction, in her intense anxiety, lest harm befall them. 

 She clucks matronly to bring them to brood under her 

 wings, or to call them together to scramble for a choice 

 morsel of food she has found. Should danger threaten, 

 a different note alarms them; they scatter in every di- 

 rection, running, like little mice, through the grass till 

 each finds a hiding place ; meanwhile, she exposes her- 

 self to attract attention, till, satisfied of the safety of 

 the brood, she whirrs away and awaits the time when 

 she may reassemble her family. In the region where 

 I observed the birds in June and July, they almost in- 

 variably betook themselves to the dense, resistant un- 

 derbrush, which extends for some distance out- 

 ward from the wooded streams, seeking safety in this 

 all but impenetrable cover, where it was nearly impossi- 

 ble to catch the young ones, or even to see them, until 

 they began to top the bushes in their early short flights. 

 The wing and tail feathers sprout in a few days, and 

 are quite well grown before feathers appear among 

 the down of the body. The first coveys seen able to 

 rise on wing were noticed early in July; but by the 

 middle of this month most of them fly smartly for short 

 distances, being about as large as quails. Others, how- 

 ever, may be observed through August, little, if any, 

 larger than this, showing a wide range of time of 

 hatching, though scarcely warranting the inference of 

 two broods in a season. 



