GROUSE, PTARMIGANS, ETC.: DUSKY GROUSE 201 
down the slope came a faint quavering 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 quietly 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 obliquely 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 between 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 Dusky, on the contrary, stood 
up as high as its few weeks would permit, its diminutive crest 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 
making a detour behind my back, joined her, and later when I succeeded 
in photographing 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 one, 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 small stiff 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 the protecting grass. We talked to it soothingly for 
some time and then drove it gently out into a better light, when quite 
reassured, before we had time to get a picture, it walked away, its little 
crest and tail raised in a very cocky manner. 
During 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 she almost flew into our tent. The next 
morning her strawberry patch was white with hailstones and we found 
her sitting humped over a stone, while her two bedraggled young were 
trying to keep warm under cover of the firs. By this time our little 
neighbors were so tame that they were not disturbed by the close report 
of a gun, and, as Mr. Bailey said, if we had stayed much longer they 
would have been so tame that some one might have shot them when 
we left. But as we broke camp soon after, we hoped that we had made 
no such return for the pleasure given us by the little family while camped 
in their woods (1904b, pp. 87-89). 
The Dusky Grouse is one of the most notable game birds of the 
region, but if overgrazing is allowed to continue and as more and more 
campers go to the mountains, it will become lamentably scarce unless 
wisely protected. 
