When the “leaves begin to turn” the well grown brood seeks the wild grapevines and the wild apple and thorn trees that it may eat the fruit. When the first heavy snow falls the few that have safely run the gantlet of the guns squat beneath the low-spreading branches of some evergreen tree and calmly allow the snow to cover them if it will. They are ready for winter now, and have donned their snowshoes. What! really? Yes, actually. They have grown horny processes on both sides of the toes which will help to support their weight on packed snow or thin crust, and they are perfectly at home on or under the snow. If a crust freezes over them, they make their way beneath it, feeding on twigs and ground vegetation until they can break out. When pursued they dive from on wing into the snow, and 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 [Illustration: 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. [Illustration: 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.