17 



foot of the ridge and singing through the 

 old pasture — ran a brook that the old beech 

 partridge seemed to love. A hundred times 

 I started him from its banks. You had only 3^^ 0/'3eecA 

 to follow it any November morning before y^<afnai^e 

 eight o'clock, and you would be sure to find 

 him. But why he haunted it at this partic- 

 ular time and season I never found out. 



I used to wonder, sometimes, why I never 

 saw him drink. Other birds had their regu- 

 lar drinking places and bathing pools there, 

 and I frequently watched them from my 

 hiding ; but though I saw him many times, 

 after I learned his haunts, he never touched 

 the water. 



One early summer morning, a possible 

 explanation suggested itself. I was sitting 

 quietly by the brook, at the edge of the big 

 woods, waiting for a pool to grow quiet, out 

 of which I had just taken a trout and in 

 which I suspected there was a larger one 

 hiding. As I waited a mother grouse and 

 her brood — one of the old beech partridge's 

 numerous families for whom he provided 

 nothing — came gliding along the edge of 



