110 FAMILIAR LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



that, and all I need to produce a convincing proof of 

 the fact is a machine that will vibrate a pair of wings, 

 which I have before me as I write, at the rate of five 

 hundred times a minute. Hollow the hands and then 

 clap them rapidly together a number of times, and a 

 somewhat similar sound will be produced, which will 

 show how much the air has to do with the case. 



The food of the partridge consists of berries, 

 seeds, buds, catkins, insects, and wild fruit. In the 

 autumn he will occasionally visit the orchard, and I 

 have often discovered him beneath some wild apple 

 tree in a copse by the river picking at the fallen fruit. 

 In winter the bird still finds ample nourishment 

 in the vdld woods of the northern mountains, and 

 what with wintergreen {Qaultheria procumbens), his 

 own berry — partridge berry [Mitchella repeaii) 

 — creeping snowberry {Chiagenes serpylli- 

 fiilid), and an abundance of evergreen 

 leaves, he is far from starving; all 

 these he gets by scratching and 

 burrowing in the snow. But it is 

 undoubtedly the case that many a 

 young bird perishes with its first ex- 

 perience of the winter's severe cold. '^^^'J^h'^ef ' 



In the Northern woods the par- 

 tridge will burrow to the interior of a snowdrift and 

 pass the nights of intense cold there. The hardy 



