In May, his mate sits on her nest, indistinguishable among the brown leaves and gray branches about her. Later, when surprised with her brood, how conspicuous she makes herself, fluttering and staggering along the ground, while her callow chicks, old in cunning though so lately their eyes first beheld the world, scatter in every direction like a shattered globule of quicksilver and magically disappear where there is no apparent hiding-place. Did they con the first lesson of safety in the dark chamber of the egg, or absorb it with the warmth of the brooding breast that gave them life? Listen, and out of the silence which follows the noisy dispersion of the family hear the low sibilant voice of the mother calling her children to her or cautioning them to continued hiding. Perhaps you may see her, alertly skulking among the underbrush, still uttering that tender, persuasive cry, so faint that the chirp of a cricket might overbear it. Scatter her brood when the members are half grown and almost as strong of wing as herself, and you presently hear her softly calling them and assuring them of her continued care. Among many things that mark the changing season, is the dispersion of this wildwood family. Each member is now shifting for itself in matters of seeking food, safety, pleasure, and comfort. You will come upon one in the ferny undergrowth of the lowland woods where he is consorting with woodcock, frighten another from his feast on the fence-side elderberries, scare one in the thick shadows of the evergreens, another on the sparsely wooded steep of a rocky hillside, and later hear the drum-beat of a young cock that the soft Indian summer has fooled into springtime love-making, and each has the alertness that complete self-dependence has enforced. Still, you may come upon them gathered in social groups, yet each going his own way when flushed. Upon rare occasions you may surprise a grand convention of all the grouse of the region congregated on the sunny lee of a hillside. It is a sight and sound to remember long, though for the moment you forget the gun in your hands, when by ones, twos, and dozens the dusky forms burst away up wind, down wind, across wind, signalling their departure with volleys of intermittent and continuous thunder. Not many times in your life will you see this, yet, if but once, you will be thankful that you have not outlived all the old world's wildness. XXXIX TWO SHOTS