r him to make out there, in
full view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. When the bird
returned after being disturbed, she would alight within a few inches of
her eggs, and then, after a moment's pause, hobble awkwardly upon them.

After the young had appeared, all the wit of the bird came into play. I
was on hand the next day, I think. The mother-bird sprang up when I was
within a pace of her, and in doing so fanned the leaves with her wings
till they sprang up too; as the leaves started the young started, and,
being of the same color, to tell which was the leaf and which the bird
was a trying task to any eye. I came the next day, when the same tactics
were repeated. Once a leaf fell upon one of the young birds and
nearly hid it. The young are covered with a reddish down like a young
partridge, and soon follow their mother about. When disturbed, they gave
but one leap, then settled down, perfectly motionless and stupid, with
eyes closed. The parent bird, on these occasions made frantic efforts
to decoy me away from her young. She would fly a few paces and fall
upon her breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would run through her
tremulous outstretched wings and prostrate body. She kept a sharp eye
out the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and if it did not, she was
quickly cured, and moving about to some other point tried to draw my
attention as before. When followed she always alighted upon the ground,
dropping down in a sudden peculiar way. The second or third day both old
and young had disappeared.

The whippoorwill walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which is as awkward as
a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead her young about the woods.
The latter, I think, move by leaps and sudden spurts, their protective
coloring shielding them most effectively. Wilson once came upon the
mother-bird and her brood in the woods, and, though they were at his
very feet, was so baffled by the concealment of the young that he
was about to give up the search, much disappointed, when he perceived
something "like a slight moldiness among the withered leaves, and,
on stooping down, discovered it to be a young whippoorwill seemingly
asleep." Wilson's description of the young is very accurate, as its
downy covering does look precisely like a "slight moldiness." Returning
a few moments afterward to the spot to get a pencil he had forgotten, he
could find neither old nor young.

It takes an eye to see a partridge in the wood