e might meet on the burned lands. All summer long,
while berries are plenty, the flocks hold together, finding ten pairs of
quiet eyes much better protection against surprises than one frightened
pair. Each flock is then under the absolute authority of the mother
bird; and one who follows them gets some curious and intensely
interesting glimpses of a partridge's education. If the mother bird is
killed, by owl or hawk or weasel, the flock still holds together, while
berries last, under the leadership of one of their own number, more bold
or cunning than the others. But with the ripening autumn, when the birds
have learned, or think they have learned, all the sights and sounds and
dangers of the wilderness, the covey scatters; partly to cover a wider
range in feeding as food grows scarcer; partly in natural revolt at
maternal authority, which no bird or animal likes to endure after he has
once learned to take care of himself.

I followed the flock rapidly, though cautiously, through an interminable
tangle of alders that bordered the little stream, and learned some
things about them; though they gave me no chance whatever for a rifle
shot. The mother was gone; their leader was a foxy bird, the smallest
of the lot, who kept them moving in dense cover, running, crouching,
hiding, inquisitive about me and watching me, yet keeping themselves
beyond reach of harm. All the while the leader talked to them, a curious
language of cheepings and whistlings; and they answered back with
questions or sharp exclamations as my head appeared in sight for a
moment. Where the cover was densest they waited till I was almost upon
them before they whisked out of sight; and where there was a bit of
opening they whirred up noisily on strong wings, or sailed swiftly away
from a fallen log with the noiseless flight that a grouse knows so well
how to use when the occasion comes.

Already the instinct to scatter was at work among them. During the day
they had probably been feeding separately along the great hillside; but
with lengthening shadows they came together again to face the wilderness
night in the peace and security of the old companionship. And I had
fortunately been quiet enough at my fishing to hear when the leader
began to call them together and they had answered, here and there, from
their feeding.

I gave up following them after a while--they were too quick for me in
the alder tangle--and came out of the swamp to the ridge. There I ra