218 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



impossible to discover them. In the meantime 

 the mother feigns lameness, throws herself at 

 your feet, kicks and gasps and flutters, to draw 

 your attention from the chicks. The young are 

 generally able to fly about the middle of July ; 

 but even after they can fly well they are usually 

 advised to run and hide and lie still, no matter 

 how closely approached, while the mother goes 

 on with her loving, lying acting, apparently as 

 desperately concerned for their safety as when 

 they were featherless infants. Sometimes, how- 

 ever, after carefully studying the circumstances, 

 she tells them to take wing ; and up and away 

 in a blurry birr and whir they scatter to all points 

 of the compass, as if blown up with gunpowder, 

 dropping cunningly out of sight three or four 

 hundred yards off, and keeping quiet until called, 

 after the danger is supposed to be past. If you 

 walk on a little way without manifesting any in- 

 clination to hunt them, you may sit down at the 

 foot of a tree near enough to see and hear the 

 happy reunion. One touch of nature makes the 

 whole world kin ; and it is truly wonderful how 

 love-telling the small voices of these birds are, 

 and how far they reach through the woods into 

 one another's hearts and into ours. The tones 

 are so perfectly human and so full of anxious 

 affection, few mountaineers can fail to be touched 

 by them. 



They are cared for until full grown. On the 



