98 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



woods with that impetus they have got, displaying 

 their neat forms perfectly. 



Jan. 31, 1854. Many tracks of partridges there 

 along the meadow-side in the maples, and their drop- 

 pings where they appear to have spent the night about 

 the roots and between the stems of trees. I think they 

 eat the buds of the azalea. And now, with a mew, pre- 

 luding a whir, they go off before me. Coming up, I 

 follow her tracks to where she eased herself for light- 

 ness, and immediately after are five or six parallel cuts 

 in the snow, where her wing struck when she lifted 

 herself from the ground, but no trace more. 



April 25, 1854. The first partridge drums in one or 

 two places, as if the earth's pulse now beat audibly 

 with the increased flow of life. It slightly flutters all 

 Nature and makes her heart palpitate. 



July 6, 1854. Disturbed two broods of partridges 

 this afternoon, — one a third grown, flying half a dozen 

 rods over the bushes, yet the old, as anxious as ever, 

 rushing to me with the courage of a hen. 



Jan. 25, 1855. In the partridge-tracks the side toes 

 are more spread than in crows ; and I believe the hind 

 one is not so long. Both trail the middle toe. 



Jan. 31, 1855. As I skated near the shore under 

 Lee's Cliff, I saw what I took to be some scrags or 

 knotty stubs of a dead limb lying on the bank beneath 

 a white oak, close by me. Yet while I looked directly 

 at them I could not but admire their close resemblance 

 to partridges. I had come along with a rapid whir 

 and suddenly halted right against them, only two rods 

 distant, and, as my eyes watered a little from skating 



