Photo by George Shiras, 3rd. 
ANOTHER VIEW OF THE YOUNG BULE MOOSE WHO WAS FORCIBLY EDUCATED (sEE 
PAGES 449 AND 450) 
accuracy, the daring mother escaped 
with the hawk in fierce pursuit. Here, 
again, the slow speed enticed the hawk 
some 50 yards away, when the hen 
dropped Hke a plummet into a bunch of 
alders, while the hawk seated himself 
on a near-by limb to plan anew his 
breakfast. 
"But the defeated aviator knew very 
well that two from eight left a substan- 
tial balance, however deficient the math- 
ematical process, and once more he re- 
turned for a survey of the tangled moss. 
This time he was met by a shout and a 
waiving hat from the spruce blind, and, 
much disgruntled, soared away, doubt- 
less wondering at the intervention of a 
third party, a wonderment that would 
have been still greater had it known the 
deadly relation between man and every 
bird and every animal possessing tooth- 
some qualities, or whose plumes, pelage, 
or antlers had a monetary or trophy 
value." 
In such efforts to save the young it 
was clear that the parent birds possessed 
the same bravery and the same cunning 
methods in misleading an aerial enemy 
that they did a terrestrial one. 
In the Kenai Peninsula the timber line 
is about 2,000 feet, and only twice were 
willow ptarmigan noticed below it, where 
they were feeding in an open glade upon 
the earlier growth of swamp huckle- 
berries. The usual abodes of this bird 
are the tablelands along upland streams 
terminating in ravines, where the w^illows 
and small bushes succeed the limit of 
arboreal growth. The rock ptarmigan 
either stays at the very crest of the 
mountains or on the sloping sides, where 
the lichens and patches of grass denote 
the limit of all vegetation. On the other 
hand the spruce partridge remains well 
within the forested area and is usually to 
be found in river bottoms or in the 
second-growth, burnt-over portions of 
the lowlands (see pages 467 and 469). 
Thus these three species of Northern 
grouse, while occupying adjoining ground, 
are largely if not wholly controlled by 
the distribution of plant life rather than 
that of any given altitude. 
One afternoon I saw a small and ap- 
parently young red fox coming rapidly 
4S6 
