to meet her lordly master as he stands proudly on an old
log awaiting her. The "whit-kwit" call may lead you to the hen grouse
with her brood of little chicks which are so much the color of the brown
leaves you will not see them until they move. If the call comes later in
the year you may come upon a flock of well-grown young birds who have
left their mother and are now following a leader.

The ruffed grouse is a beautiful bird. He is yellowish-brown or rusty,
splashed with black or dark brown, and white, with under-parts of a
light buff. His beak is short and on his small, dainty head he carries
his crest proudly. His shoulders bear epaulets of dark feathers, called
the ruff, and his fan-like tail is banded and cross-barred. The nest of
the grouse is on the ground, usually against a fallen log, at the foot
of a tree, or in a hollow made by the roots; or it may be hidden amid
underbrush. It is easily overlooked, being made of dry leaves with,
perhaps, some feathers. In the season it contains from eight to fourteen
eggs.

=Woodcock=

The woodcock, another forest bird, seldom shows himself in broad
daylight except when hunted; then he will rise a few feet, fly a short
distance, drop and run, hiding again as quickly as he can. You will know
the woodcock from the ruffed grouse by his _long bill_, his short legs,
and his very short tail. He frequents the banks of wooded streams or the
bogs of the forests and, like the grouse, nests on the ground; but the
woodcock's nest seldom contains more than four eggs.

[Illustration: Stalking wild birds.]

=Beaver=

Along the shores of sluggish streams, of lonely lakes and ponds, you may
see the beaver, the muskrat, very rarely the otter, and sometimes an
ugly little, long-bodied animal belonging to the marten family called
the fisher. These are all interesting, each in its own way, and well
worth hours of quiet observation. The beaver, otter, and fisher choose
wild, secluded places for their homes, but the muskrat may be found also
in the marshes of farm lands. On the edges of our Long Island meadows
the boys trap muskrats for their skins.

You will find the beaver house in the water close to the shore and
overlapping it. Though strongly and carefully built, it looks very much
like a jumble of small driftwood, with bleached sticks well packed
together, and the ends standing out at all angles. The sticks are
stripped of their bark and the house gleams whitely against the da