156 OUR WINTER BIRDS 



that he beat the log on which he usually takes his 

 stand; others were equally sure that he clapped his 

 wings on his sides. 



It was not until Grouse, raised in captivity, be- 

 came so tame that they would drum almost on one's 

 knee, that it was learned that their stiff, rounded 

 wings struck only the air. The startling whirr with 

 which a Grouse springs into the air from beneath 

 one's feet is also caused by the quick strokes of his 

 concave wing-quills beating the air. 



The Grouse's tattoo is his love song. With the 

 coming of May we more rarely hear it rolling 

 through the woods, and then may know that his 

 mate is on her leaf-lined nest at the base of some 

 tree, sitting on ten or a dozen pale buff eggs. 



The Grouse chicks, like those of their relative, the 

 barnyard hen, can run about as soon as the thick 

 covering of down in which they are born is dry. 

 They are true feathered brownies, and have the 

 power of becoming invisible while your eyes are upon 

 them. 



Walking through the woods in June we come sud- 

 denly upon a mother Grouse and her family. Does 

 she desert them ? Not a bit of it I Thought of fly- 

 ing possibly never enters her head. She thinks only 

 of those little balls of down which a moment before 

 were running so actively about her. At any cost 



