push their way below the surface, to burst out again farther on. It is exceedingly difficult to starve the grouse. They will live on frozen twigs, buds, laurel leaves, sumac berries, or birch and alder catkins. So my notebooks cover the history of the grouse through all the seasons of the livelong year.

THE BOB WHITE

BOB WHITE IN WINTER

These little birds have a hard time finding food when the snow is on the ground.

“Bob white! You bob white!” cries a brave little fowl from the top rail of the old fence. His call is the embodiment of cheerfulness. There is something heartening in the sound. This is due in part to its rich and vigorous quality, and in part to its rising termination—the question in the final note—as if it said “All right there, Fellows?” How different from the note of the whippoorwill, with its falling inflection and its general expression of sad finality. The whippoorwill may be a cheerful bird. One is inclined to doubt it; but we know Bob White is happy. Just hear him! He looks it too. Thus this cheerful little optimist makes his way to the hearts of men. Even the sportsmen who slay him love him, and are often his best friends,—after the shooting season,—and the epicure loves him—on toast. Down South they call him partridge. In the North he is known as the quail; but the ornithologists, who try to settle such matters for all, have taken his word for it and have named him Bob White.

A YOUNG BOB WHITE

This cheery little manikin is about the most important North American bird that flies, not excepting even the American eagle. He is the farmer’s friend. Almost every insect pest of the garden and field is grist for his mill. All spring and summer he slays his thousands and tens of thousands, and in the fall he fattens up on millions of weed seeds. Yes, grain too; but only the waste grain left in the stubble. That is about all the grain he takes—and, after all this, many farmers get the sportsman to pay off the taxes on their farms for the privilege of shooting their little friend! Thus the school taxes are paid, and Bob White settles for the education of the children.

YOUNG BOB WHITES

The birds in this group are seven weeks old.

The pursuit of Bob White is a blessed boon to many jaded and brain-wearied business and professional men. Some believe that they have lengthened their lives by trying to shorten his. How the bird has survived with so many “friends” thirsting for his blood is hard to tell; but for all his trustfulness he is not so easily taken. Many gunners have believed that he can sometimes fool the best dog by “holding his scent.” I have seen him several times squat close to the ground on the approach of a dog, draw his head flat between his shoulders, and “sit tight” while the dog poked along, his nose to the ground, absolutely unconscious of the whereabouts of the little bird; but let a man appear, and the bird shows more anxiety and takes greater pains to get away or hide. I have seen him, when alarmed, disappear as if he had put on a coat of invisibility, and then, when the danger was past, grow out of the scenery, and walk right toward me from the very spot on which my powerful glass had been focused all the time. How he does this is another story.

Why talk about his habits? Everybody who does not know them can have a good time studying them; for his life is open for all to see. What concerns us