WILD LIFE ON THE WING 
rearranged the feathers round it tenderly. By 
dawn, when he went to his "road," it would 
have been hard to tell that anything was amiss 
with him, only for a purple stain on the leaves 
where he had been lying, and he flew as well 
as any of his peers. 
He ;w0n the "lie" closest to her, under 
proiee'h's brambles. He dozed wakefully, and 
^hgn- 1 , .near noon she stretched herself in the 
sunshine, and quietly left the place, he followed 
her. On the other side of the swamp there 
was a fern stub whose withered fronds curtained 
a little hollow. She spent over an hour at this 
place, and he waited in respectful attendance a 
little distance apart. When they left the little 
hollow, together, it was no longer empty. 
The hen woodcock squatted down in her old 
"lie," but Creaman puffed out his feathers 
(though the effort tore open his wound again) 
and pirouetted round twice proudly. But when 
he turned round for the third time, she was 
asleep, and his head drooped again. 
VI 
Some say that there is no moral code in the 
woods, but only wonderful Instincts. I pray 
you, mark this, and then marvel at the distinc- 
tion made between morality with a minuscule 
102 
