i 4 4 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



partridge out from under the cover of a fallen log, 

 or the base of a tree, and, unfooled by her running 

 off with a pretended broken wing, go to the spot and 

 find there, in a nest of leaves half hidden under the 

 ferns, perhaps a dozen creamy white eggs or even, 

 if your are very lucky (it has never happened to me), 

 the young chicks. I say very lucky, because the 

 chicks leave the nest practically as soon as hatched, 

 and, if you do not find the eggs, what you will prob- 

 ably have seen instead is a scurry of little dark puffs 

 of feathers in under the protecting foliage of the 

 forest floor, the mother having attempted to divert 

 your attention till her wise babes could hide them- 

 selves. The baby grouse very soon learn to fly — 

 in about five days, it is said. Thus the period of 

 gravest danger for them is reduced to less than a 

 week, since they spend no time in the nest. No 

 doubt that accounts in large measure for the per- 

 sistence of the breed. But even after they are well 

 grown they must often stay by the parents, for on 

 the Crawford Bridle Path up Mount Washington, 

 before it breaks out of the woods above timber- 

 line, the partridges are extremely tame, and I have 

 approached within six feet of a family of eight or 

 ten, led by a big cock. They went on feeding quite 

 undisturbed, scratching up the mossy soil with soft 

 little coots, like gentler domestic hens, and all fol- 

 lowing behind the cock. 



There is nothing, to me, more fraught with charm 

 and delightful associations than a New England 

 upland pasture, a pasture of irregular outline, with 

 capes of fir and birch jutting into it from the sur- 

 rounding forest, with a mountain going up above 



