The wings of all the scratching birds are even now short and round, and their flight is feeble. Their chief home is on the ground, where they crouch among the thick herbage when the keen-eyed hawk is hovering overhead, never taking to their wings till no other chance is left them. The mother partridge runs many dangers as she sits upon her dark-coloured eggs in some sheltered spot, for weasels and stoats will attack her and steal her eggs if she leaves them for a moment, or kill her herself if they can take her unawares in the dark night. She could never hope to rear her young ones if they did not come out of the egg well covered with down, and able to run and pick by her side while she and the father scratch the ground with their short blunt claws to get ant-cocoons, and later on worms and insects for them. Yet so well does scratching answer, in getting at buried food such as other birds cannot find, that there are a large number of these ground birds all over the world. The Guinea fowls of Africa, the spurred Peacocks, Pheasants, and Jungle fowls of India (from which last our tame fowls probably come), the wild Turkeys of America, the Quails which live in all parts of the old world from Australia to England, and the Ptarmigans of our northern countries, which put on their white plumage in winter--all these show how advantage has been taken of every nook in which ground birds could find shelter. We find them hiding in thick jungles and shady woods, or even in open ground among high grass and corn, scratching mother earth for their daily food; washing not in water but actually in the dust, by rolling in it, and then shaking it off; escaping many dangers by wearing a plumage very much the same in colour as the different grasses and leaves among which they hide; and feeding on insects, worms, and seeds, and whatever they can find upon the ground or under it. [Illustration: Fig. 41. Brush turkeys[99] and their egg mounds.]