28 FEATHERED GAME 
clearing that the lumberman has made, now 
growing up with blackberries, raspberries, and 
all the underbrush which so quickly covers up 
these unsightly scars on mother Nature’s face? 
Then some bright September morning while the 
dew still glitters on blade and leaf, take your 
dog and gun and beat it up. A little amphi- 
theatre overgrown with berry bushes and low 
brush, walled in on every side by a sturdy 
growth of pines, spruces or hemlock, dark green 
and solid in their masses. One lone dead stub 
towers above the smaller and younger growth 
of the clearing. Gray and desolate it stands, 
bristling with the ragged and broken remains 
of its former lusty youth, and at its feet the 
bare ledge stone shows through its garment of 
moss, pine needles and scanty grass. Here is 
a low stump which a dozen changing seasons 
have almost levelled with the ground, and on 
its sides and at its base the marks of the par- 
tridges’ scratching feet as they search for the 
grubs and worms, tenants at will of its inner 
chambers. On one side a shallow, round hole 
scooped out of the dry earth shows where the 
bird has made his dust bath and lain basking in 
the sun during the warm afternoons. And on 
