88 
THE CONDOR 
VOL. VI 
tograph her and she let me drive her a few steps at a time until one of her brood 
hidden by the log flew up into a tree. Instantly the little hen which had been de- 
murely permitting me to shoo her around, was transformed into the alert, anxious 
mother, and hurried back into the woods evidently expecting me to follow. In- 
stead, I sat down on the grass and kept quiet. 
After .some time I was rewarded by the faintest possible call from behind me, 
and looking keenly in its direction discovered her creeping cautiously out of the 
dark woods, crest and head down, tail hanging. Not seeing me she came out to 
the edge of the meadow, mounted a log, and giving a low chick, such as a motherly 
hen gives when quieting her brood, she emitted two loud characteristic, wild, 
whistling notes, on the instant leaning forward, craning her neck to listen. From 
the grass down the slope came a faint (piavering answer from her little one — the 
one that had not been heard from since Mr. Bailey flushed it. At the answer the 
mother raised her head as if satisfied, and having placed it by her loud cry, called 
quietl}" at short intervals as if to draw it toward her. 
While she was hunting up her second fledgling, the first one, the one that I 
had frightened into 
a tree, flew oblique- 
ly down into the grass 
several rods from the 
woods. At this the 
old bird cautiously 
made her way out to 
it, creeping through 
the high grass be- 
tween the sods as .she 
had come from the 
woods, crest down, 
tail hanging, pecking 
at the grass at each 
side as she went. The 
small grouse, on the 
contrary, stood up as 
high as its weeks 
would permit, its dim- 
inutive cre.st raised, eagerly watching its mother’s approach. As I appeared on the 
scene at that point, the old bird drew back a little, but the youngster, quietly mak- 
ing a detour behind mv back joined her, and later when I succeeded in photo- 
graphing the hen, at about seven feet, the chicken was almost in focus also. 
Another day we came on the mother and one of her brood out on the open 
hillside, whereupon the old one promptly flew up into the nearest tree. The little 
grouse, badly frightened, crouched round-backed and flat-headed in the grass, its 
heart beats throbbing in its throat. After photographing it we got up within two 
or three feet of it, when it burst away on its stiff little wings, coming to ground 
again under its mother’s tree. She clucked to it from her branch overhead and it 
squatted low, almost hidden in tlie protecting grass. We talked to it soothingly 
for some time and then drove it gently out into a better light, when quite reas- 
sured, before we had time to get a picture, it walked away, its little crest and tail 
raised in a very cocky manner. 
A cold stormy night a week later the old grouse brought her brood into the 
firs behind our camp, and in the night, when a deer whistled she was so startled 
