Chapter XIV: Four Notables

_Grouse, Quail, Woodcock, and the Wood Duck_

The Saturday before Thanksgiving Tommy Todd came trudging up the road toward “the General’s,” with an extremely contented expression on a face that was usually more than cheerful, while he kept turning his head to admire something that he carried in his right hand, twisting and swinging it as he walked. The something was a beautiful male Ruffed Grouse, or Partridge, as it is commonly called, in all the bravery of its glossy neck-ruff and tail that when spread looks like that of a miniature Wild Turkey.

Together with the Grouse was a pair of Quail in rich, brown autumn coats and snowy throats that excel those of the White-throated Sparrow itself. Tommy’s father and his elder brother Joe, the Fair Meadows blacksmith, had taken two “days off,” and gone a-hunting up to the upland brush-country beyond the river woods, and these birds, a part of the result, were a gift for Gray Lady and Goldilocks. Not only were the birds in fine condition, but they were nicely tied together with some sprays of trailing ground-pine and a little tuft of pungent wintergreen with its coral berries.

Gray Lady took the birds, and as she thanked Tommy for them, glanced toward Goldilocks, who sat in the library window watching for the children to come. When the young girl saw the birds, she gave an exclamation, half of pleasure at their plumage, half of sorrow that they were dead, for to keep everything alive and as happy as possible was her inherent nature. But she knew that these were game- or “chicken-birds,” as she had once called them when a mere baby, whose fate was to be eaten, and that Tommy’s father had only followed a legitimate desire for outdoor life and its sports when he had tramped more than thirty miles for the hunting. So she merely said, as she smoothed the beautifully shaded feathers, “I wish the Kind Hearts’ Club could do something to make game-birds have a _very_ comfortable, good time, the part of the year when they are not hunted; do you think we could, mother? For I don’t think that this shy kind of bird will come to the lunch-counter, and I’ve been wondering lately what they find to eat in such cold winters as the last. Miss Wilde has told me that for weeks last winter the snow was so deep that in going, from where she lived, a mile to school, she never even saw a fence top, so if game-birds ‘feed chiefly on the ground after the manner of barnyard fowls, roosting in low trees and bushes,’ as one of my books says, I do not see why they do not freeze and starve.”

“That’s what Pop and Grand’ther and Joe were talking about last night,” said Tommy; “they said that they travelled over miles of stubble-fields and brush-lots where there used to be lots of birds, and now, in spite of the laws in our place that are down on pot-hunters and won’t let game be sold or carried away, and our having a keen county warden, the birds seem to be melting away just the same.”

“What did your father think was the reason?” asked Gray Lady, for she remembered as a young girl that the General used to say, “Get a farmer interested in a subject enough to make him really think, and you cannot get better advice.”

“Pop said all these new stiff-edged stone roads that are pushing out the dirt and grass lanes may be mighty fine for automobiles and all the other dust-raisers, but they’re poor trash for horses’ feet and game-birds, ’cause the brush along the old roads both sides of the fences made good cover and kept the snow, when it drifted, sort of loose, so that the birds could get in and out to look for food. But when everything is trimmed smooth, the snow lies flat and hard and crusty, and the birds can’t get under to grub for food, and if they’re under and it freezes on top of ’em, they can’t get out.

“Grand’ther said that was so, but he reckoned there wasn’t so much for the game-birds to eat, anyhow, because folks that used to raise just so many acres of rye and wheat and oats and buckwheat had mostly given it up and put their land down to meadows for hay, because that is the only crop that there is a sure market for everywhere. Then Grand’ther said that, between freezing and starving, and what was left being shot down close, it’s a wonder there’s any Grouse left, or Bob-whites either.”

“There, Goldilocks, you have your answer as to what the Kind Hearts’ Club can do to make these food-birds comfortable during the ten months of the year (in this state, Connecticut), when they may roam without fear of hunting by honest sportsmen. The dishonest hunters and pot-hunters, who do not care for law and order, we must watch and bring to justice, just as we do any other class of criminals.

“Some very good people are extremely careless about this, and would arrest a hungry man for stealing a bottle of milk from a doorstep, and yet even buy game from poachers whom they knew had taken it against the law; doing this is a far more serious offence, for one of our Wise Men has said that wild birds are not the property of the individual, but of the Commonwealth.”

“I wish these birds need never be shot; don’t you?” said Sarah Barnes. “They are much prettier than some song-birds, and I’m sure that Bob-white’s call is just as pleasant to hear as a song.”

“Yes, Sarah, I should like to protect the game-birds also, unless in cases where people, living away from places where other food can be had, are really hungry. But there are two sides to this question, and the Kind Hearts’ Club must always try to look at both, so as to be sure that in being just to one, the other may not be misjudged. All over the country there are hundreds of men who, for nearly all the year, are tied to desks in offices, and their heads are weary and their bodies cramped. The love of hunting is born in man, probably an inheritance from his ancestors, who hunted for their living, just as the bird inherits the instincts of migration from its parents and performs the journeys even when there is no need.

“This love of hunting leads the men out into the woods for a few weeks, or even days, each year, and, besides the hunting, they meet Nature face to face, and, whether they know it or not, come back better able to take up the work of life, which is a harder struggle as the world gets older and older.

“Some people may not agree with me, but I had a good warm-hearted father, who gave his life in the cause of humanity; yet he loved fair hunting, and Goldilocks’ father did, also. So I think that the Kind Hearts’ Club will not only be doing the game-bird a service, but man also, if it can make and carry out a plan to feed and shelter these birds, even in the space of Fair Meadows township.

“I have been talking this over with some men who know the haunts of these birds, and next month, if the big boys join us, I will tell you my plan; for it will need sturdy fellows to carry it out, though you can all help.”

“Where do the Grouse nest, in bushes or on the ground?” asked Dave; “I’ve never seen one, though I’ve found a Woodcock’s nest, and touched the bird on it, she was so tame.”

“They make their nest on the ground, Dave,” said Gray Lady; “not much of a nest, merely a few leaves scratched together in a tree hollow. Now we have these real birds here (for later I know that Tommy will let me share them with Miss Wilde’s mother, who has been so ill, and her appetite needs tempting), let us spend the morning with the game-birds; Dave shall tell us of his Woodcock’s nest, and I have many little bits in the scrap-book about the others, besides remembrances of my own.

“Children, can you realize that when I was a girl of twelve, I could stand of a May morn, by the old orchard bars, where the Birdland gate is now, and hear twenty or thirty Bob-whites calling all the way across the fields and brush-lots, until the Ridge shut off the sound?

BOB-WHITE

“I own the country hereabout,” says Bob-white;
“At early morn I gayly shout, ‘I’m Bob-white!’
From stubble-field and stake-rail fence
You hear me call without offence,
‘I’m Bob-white! Bob-white!’
Sometimes I think I’ll nevermore say Bob-white;
It often gives me quite away, does Bob-white;
And mate and I, and our young brood,
When separate, wandering through the wood,
Are killed by sportsmen I invite
By my clear voice—‘Bob-white! Bob-white!’
Still, don’t you find I’m out of sight
While I am saying ‘Bob-white, Bob-white’?”

—Charles C. Marble.

“They rested in the orchard bushes and the edge of brush-lots, so that I was as sure of seeing broods of little Quail as of our own little barnyard chicks. In the autumn they seemed to know about the hunting as soon as a gun was fired in the distance; then they grew shy, but by Christmas the survivors, and they were many, would come about the hay-barns for food as familiarly as the tree-trunk birds come to the lunch-counter, and I have seen them eating cracked corn with the fowls in the barnyard.

“Not only is Bob-white a beautiful object in the landscape, when he sits on a fence top overlooking the fields, but his voice is a delight to the ear, when he either tells his own name, or gives the beseeching ‘covey call,’ in autumn, to gather his scattered flock for the night. Then, on the more useful or material side of the question, not only is his flesh good for food, but, all through the year, he is one of the farmer’s good friends, gleaning, day in and day out, besides the waste grain that he loves, weed seeds, harmful beetles, such as the cucumber beetle, potato and squash bugs, leaf beetles, the dreaded weevils, and the click beetles, that are wire worms in a further stage of their development.

“Ah me, but poor Bob-white, as he calls himself (bringing out the words with peculiar jerks of the head), works for his living, and when you think of the dangers he braves from foxes and snakes, rats and weasels, birds of prey with wings, and the two-legged birds of prey,—the poachers,—does it not seem that where his tribe is growing swiftly less, he should not only be fed and sheltered, but, for a term of years, there should be no open season, until this fertile and vigorous bird should again increase and be able to hold its own against even fair hunting? If the Quail needs this protection, doubly so does the Ruffed Grouse, who is larger and can with greater difficulty conceal himself.

PARTRIDGES
(Ruffed Grouse)

Under the alders, along the brooks,
Under the hemlocks, along the hill,
Spreading their plumage with furtive looks,
Daintily pecking the leaves at will;
Whir! and they float from the startled sight—
And the forest is silent, the air is still.

Crushing the leaves ’neath our careless feet,
Snapping the twigs with a heavy tread,
Dreamy October is late and sweet,
And stooping we gather a blossom dead;
Boom! and our heart has a thunderous beat
As the gray apparition flits overhead.

—Alonzo Teall Worden.

“I will read you his story, written by a Wise Man of Massachusetts who knows the game-birds from all sides.”

“The Ruffed Grouse, the ‘King of American game-birds,’ was
abundant in all our woods, and was often seen in fields and
orchards, until its numbers were decimated by the gunner and the
survivors driven to the cover of the pines. The characteristic
startling roar of its wings, with which it starts away when
flushed from the ground, and its habit of drumming on a log,
have been often described. The speed with which the wings are
beaten in drumming makes it impossible for the human eye to
follow them and make sure whether they strike anything or not.
Naturalists, after long discussion, had come to believe that the
so-called ‘drumming,’ of the Ruffed Grouse was caused by the
bird beating the air with its wings, as described by Mr. William
Brewster; but now comes Dr. C. F. Hodge and reopens the
controversy by exhibiting a series of photographs, which seem to
show that the bird, in drumming, strikes the contour feathers of
the body. Strange as it may seem, there are many people who
often take outings in the country, yet have never heard the
drumming of this bird. This tattoo is most common in late winter
and early spring, but may be heard occasionally in summer and
not uncommonly in fall. While sounded oftenest during the day,
it may fall on the ear at any hour of the night. In making it,
the bird usually stands very erect on a hollow log or stump,
with head held high and ruffs erected and spread, and, raising
its wings, strikes downward and forward. The sound produced is a
muffled boom or thump. It begins with a few slow beats, growing
gradually quicker, and ends in a rolling, accelerated tattoo. It
has a ventriloquial property. Sometimes, when one is very close
to the bird, the drumming seems almost soundless; at other times
it sounds much louder at a distance, as if, through some
principle of acoustics, it were most distinctly audible at a
certain radius from the bird. It is the bird’s best expression
of its abounding vigour and virility, and signifies that the
drummer is ready for love or war.

“The female alone understands the task of incubation and the
care of the young. Once, however, when I came upon a young
brood, the agonized cry of the distressed mother attracted a
fine cock bird. He raised all his feathers and, with ruffs and
tail spread, strutted up to within a rod of my position,
seemingly almost as much concerned as the female, but not coming
quite so near. The hen sometimes struts forward toward the
intruder in a similar manner, when surprised while with her
young. She can raise her ruffs and strut exactly like the cock.

“The Grouse has so many enemies that it seems remarkable how it
can escape them, nesting as it does on the ground. Instances are
on record, however, where birds, that probably have been much
persecuted, have learned to deposit their eggs in old nests of
Hawks or Crows, in tall trees. Whenever the mother bird leaves
the nest, the eggs are easily seen, and, while she sits, it
would seem impossible for her whereabouts to remain a secret to
the keen-scented prowlers of the woods. But her colours blend so
perfectly with those of the dead leaves on the forest floor, and
she sits so closely, and remains so motionless among the
shadows, that she escapes the sharp-eyed Hawk. She gives out so
little scent that the dog, skunk, or fox passes quite near,
unnoticing.

“The Grouse does not naturally fear man; more than once, in the
wilderness of the northwest, a single bird has walked up to
within a few feet of me. They will sit on limbs just above one’s
head, almost within reach, and regard one curiously, but without
much alarm. Usually, in Massachusetts, when a human being comes
near the nest, the mother bird whirs loudly away. She has well
learned the fear of man; but, in a place where no shooting was
permitted, a large gang of men were cutting under-brush, while a
Partridge, sitting there, remained quietly on her nest as the
men worked noisily all about her. Another bird, that nested
beside a woods road, along which I walked daily, at first would
fly before I had come within a rod of her; but later she became
confiding enough to sit on her nest while six persons passed
close beside her. Evidently the bird’s facility in concealing
her nest consists in sitting close and keeping her eggs well
covered. Her apparent faith in her invisibility is overcome only
by her fear of man or her dread of the fox. When the fox is seen
approaching directly toward her, she bristles up and flies at
him, in the attempt to frighten him with the sudden roar of her
wings and the impetuosity of her attack; but Reynard, although
at first taken aback, cannot always be deceived by such tricks;
and the poor bird, in her anxiety to defend her nest, only
betrays its whereabouts. Probably, however, the fox rarely finds
her nest, unless he happens to blunder directly into it.

* * * * *

“During the fall the Grouse keep together in small flocks.
Sometimes a dozen birds may be found around some favourite
grape-vine or apple tree, but they are usually so harried and
scattered by gunners that toward winter the old birds may
sometimes be found alone.

“As winter approaches, this hardy bird puts on its ‘snow-shoes,’
which consist of a fringe of horny processes or pectinations
that grow out along each toe, and help to distribute the weight
of the bird over a larger surface, and so allow it to walk over
snows into which a bird not so provided would sink deeply. Its
digestion must resemble that of the famous Ostrich, as broken
twigs and dry leaves are ground up in its mill. It is a hard
winter that will starve the Grouse. A pair spent many winter
nights in a little cave in the rocky walls of an old quarry.
Sumacs grew there and many rank weeds. The birds lived well on
sumac berries, weed seeds, and buds.

“Sometimes, but perhaps rarely, these birds are imprisoned under
the snow by the icy crust which forms in cold weather following
a rain, but usually they are vigorous enough to find a way out,
somewhere. The Grouse is perfectly at home beneath the snow; it
will dive into it to escape a Hawk, and can move rapidly about
beneath the surface and burst out again in rapid flight at some
unexpected place.

“The Ruffed Grouse is a bird of the woodland, and though useful
in the woods, it sometimes does some injury in the orchard, by
removing too many buds from a single tree. In winter and early
spring, when other food is buried by the snow, and hard to
obtain, the Grouse lives largely on the buds and green twigs of
trees; but, as spring advances, insects form a considerable part
of the food. The young feed very largely on insects, including
many very destructive species.”

—E. H. Forbush, in _Useful Birds and Their Protection_.

THE RUFFED GROUSE

When the pallid sun has vanished
Under Osceola’s ledges,
When the lengthening shadows mingle
In a sombre sea of twilight,
From the hemlocks in the hollow
Swift emerging comes the Partridge;
Not a sound betrays her starting,
Not a sound betrays her lighting
In the birches by the wayside,
In her favoured place for budding.
When the twilight turns to darkness,
When the fox’s bark is sounding,
From her buds the Partridge hastens,
Seeks the soft snow by the hazels,
Burrows in its sheltering masses,
Burrows where no Owl can find her.

—Frank Bolles.

“You all know the path that runs by the grist-mill and up through the river woods. In spring, I could almost count upon seeing a Grouse or two when I took that walk, and very early, of September and October mornings, I have seen the Woodcock probing, with their long, sensitive, pointed bills, with which they can feel like fingers, in the muddy ground back of the river woods for the worms, and such like, upon which they feed. It was my father, himself, who took me one evening, even though it was bedtime, to these same woods to hear the Woodcock’s courting dance and song.”

“I didn’t know any game-birds could sing,” said Tommy.

“They are not classed with song-birds, and yet in courting time, most birds have some sort of musical speech in addition to their call-notes; you know that even Crows sometimes succeed in singing. But this love-song varies with the individual bird more than it does with the birds that are real vocalists.

“The Woodcock feed chiefly at dawn and twilight, and it is easy to tell where they have been by the little holes in the mud left by the bill. This spring night father took me to the wood edge, and drew me to him, to keep me still while we waited—for what? I was soon to know.

“Presently a half-musical cry came out of the gathering darkness, and was repeated and echoed by several others. Then a rush, as if a bird had flung himself into the air and opened his wings at the same time; next, a whirring sound as the bird circled skyward and vanished, his notes falling behind him, but before I realized what was going on, the bird dropped straight as a Hawk, balanced on his toes, gave a low, musical cry, and began again; for thus it is that the Woodcock tries to please and win his mate.

THE WOODCOCK’S WOOING

Peent, -peent, -peent, -peent,
From the thick grass on the hill;
Peent, -peent, -peent, -peent,
At eve when the world is still.

Then a sudden whistle of whirring wings,—
A rush to the upper air,—
And a rain of maddening music falls
From the whole sky,—everywhere!

—Winifred Ballard Blake in _Bird-Lore_.

“Dave, please tell us about the bird that you saw on the nest,” said Gray Lady, “and how you came to find it.”

“Half a dozen of us went out to hunt for May-flowers (Trailing Arbutus) one Wednesday along the first part of April last year. Miss Wilde thought Zella had measles, and school was closed two days, but doctor found it was only a cold and eating too much sausage meat and sweet pickles, and so they broke out, and he gave her rhubarb.” (Dave, having been asked to tell all about it, was bound to omit no detail.)

“The others of our crowd stayed along by the path that runs through the wood, where you saw the birds dance, because there are black snakes through the brush there that begin to crawl out to sun in April, and the girls were scared of them.

“I went on ahead a little piece, and turned up a side hill where there was an old rail fence that divides our woods from the Cobbs’ piece. Right in front of me I found a bully patch of May-flowers, and I sat down and began cutting them with my knife (’cause they have wiry sort of stems) and made them in a nice even bunch, when something ahead sort of made me keep my eyes glued to it. It was under the slant of the lowest fence rail. I thought it was a striped snake curled up round, at first, because I felt eyes were looking at me, though it was too dark to see them, at first. Did you ever have that feeling, Gray Lady?”

“Yes, I have had it, Dave, and I know what a strange sensation it is. The last time I had it I felt no better when I saw the eyes; in fact, little cold shivers went all over, for I was far away from here, and the eyes were those of a rattlesnake that was coiled up, amid the stones of a ledge, where I was gathering some rare wild flowers.”

“Oh, what _did_ you do?” cried all the children, together.

“I backed away as fast as I could, keeping my eyes upon the snake, until I was at a safe distance, where he could not spring at me, and then I very foolishly ran! What did you do, Dave?”

“I crept up nearer until I got a good look, and then I saw that it was a bird. It was sitting ever so still, with its head well down on its shoulders and its long beak close to its breast. It had queer, big eyes set up on top of its head, and round like a frog’s, not like any other bird that I know of.”

“The eyes of the Woodcock and its cousins, the Snipe, are set in this way, so that, when they are boring in the mud for food, they can keep watch behind them as well as in front,” said Gray Lady.

“First, I thought the bird was dead, it kept so still,” continued Dave, “but I could see its breast raised a little with its breathing.”

“If it had been dead, its eyes would have been closed,” said Gray Lady. “It is one of the many mysterious and unaccountable facts about a bird, that it is the only animal that closes its own eyes when death touches it.”

“It wasn’t afraid, so I thought that I would just smooth its feathers,” said Dave. “I did, and it didn’t fly, only just puffed up a little, so I thought I would lift it very carefully to see if there were any eggs under it, and there were four nice, sort of round, light, brown eggs, the colour that our Plymouth Rocks lay, only mottled. But the bird didn’t like to be lifted, and she sort of growled inside, the way a hen does, so I set her down and went away.”

“That was a very pleasant experience of yours, Dave, and shows how tame game-birds will become if they are kindly treated. This Woodcock has an advantage over the Grouse and Bob-white, his cousin, because it travels South in winter and constantly shifts its feeding-places, but it suffers from other dangers: it is hunted in all the states through which it passes, and the eggs are large enough to be very attractive, not only to foxes and all the gnawing creatures of the woods, but to people as well. If that nest and eggs had been seen by one of those foreign-born poachers who come here thinking that everything they find out-of-doors, and they can pocket, belongs to them, the poor Woodcock would have lost her entire brood and perhaps her own life as well.

* * * * *

“These three land-birds, together with a number of wild ducks, that live some on fresh and some near salt water, travelling North and South according to season, are the legitimate game-birds of the country. Of the wild ducks, the most of these breed in the far North, and are hunted in their migrations. If this hunting is done fairly, as the law prescribes, and the birds are not chased and shot at from moving boats, or with repeating guns, or when startled from their sleep with flashing lights, they seem able to hold their own. Humanity, however, demands that they should not be hunted on their spring journeys on the way to their nesting-haunts and when they may have already chosen mates.

“One Duck there is, however, of exquisite plumage, gentle disposition, and quiet, domestic habits, nesting about inland ponds and streams, in the inhabited parts of the United States, from Florida up to Hudson Bay, that is in danger of swift extinction if the protection given song-birds is not extended to it. This is the Wood Duck, called in Latin ‘_Aix Sponsa_’—‘Bridal Duck’—from the fact that the beauty of his plumage was fit for a bridal garment.

“Look at that bird, mounted on a mossy stump, in that case by the window. When I was a girl, I have seen a half-dozen pairs in the pond above the grist-mill, and I knew as surely where I could always find a pair nesting as where I could find a Robin or Song Sparrow, but now it is fast becoming a bird of the past, only to be seen in pictures. Why is this? The reasons are many, and some, such as the settlement of the country, and the draining of ponds and waterways, and the cutting down of river brush, cannot be helped.

“The Wood Duck nests in a tree hole, and, when the young are able to leave the nest, the parents hold them in their bills and carry them to the ground in somewhat the way in which cats remove their kittens from place to place. Consequently, if the lumber is cleared, and no suitable trees are left, what is this Duck to do? He cannot take to the chimneys as the Swifts have. Still, this Duck, whose beauty alone is a sufficient and patriotic reason for saving him to his country, might adapt his nesting to other conditions if it could be protected as the Grouse, Quail, and Woodcock are in New England, or, better yet, not be hunted in any way for a number of years, so that the Wood Ducks, wherever located, should have, a chance to increase once more and reëstablish themselves.

Order—Anseres Family—Anatidæ
Genus—Aix Species—Sponsa

“For, when we come to look closely at the matter, there is really no fair hunting, for the killing inventions of man—the magazine guns, etc.,—are on the increase, while the power of poor game-birds to protect themselves lessens both on land and water. Think of it, in some states there are no laws to protect this bird, even in summer, and, as Wood Ducks are fond of their nesting-places, and are very unsuspicious birds, it often happens that an entire family is killed the moment the young are large enough to furnish the pitiful thing, in this case, that is called ‘sport.’

“As it happens, the woods on this side of the river from above the pond to the sawmill belong to the General’s farm, and, Tommy and Dave, the water right on the other side belongs to your fathers.

“Will you not ask them if they will help me to protect their birds, if I can get half a dozen pairs from one of the Wise Men who is trying to reëstablish them in their old haunts?

“The Grouse and Quail are growing friendly again under protection, and I am in hopes that we may have a drummer, as well as a fifer and his family, in the orchard and near-by woods next spring.

“There are many hollow willows near the upper pond like the ones in which the Wood Ducks used to nest. If these are left, the ducks will soon become attached to them, and, if they escape peril elsewhere, for this Duck’s greatest danger is in the vicinity of home, then we shall all have a chance, possibly, some day to see a sight that ever the Wise Men argue about,—the parent Duck bringing her young from the tree hole to take their first swim!”

The boys promised to ask the question, and Tommy reported at the schoolhouse, the next Friday, that “grandpa thinks it would be just bully to have Wood Ducks again, and he’ll sit round the pond, with a shot-gun, all he’s able, to keep folks away. He says he’s seen the old ones yank the young, one by one, right out of the nest by the wing, and set ’em on the ground, and when they were all down, lead ’em to the water. And once, when the tree was close over the pond, the old bird flew down and set ’em right on the water. He says weasels and water-rats and snakes and snapping-turtles help kill off the ducklings, because until they get big enough to fly they’ve got no way of lighting-out.” All of which goes to prove that Tommy Todd had inherited some of his keenness of eye in “watching out” for the doings of wild things.

“There are others that are classed with game-birds that will surely everywhere be stricken from the list some day, and put with those birds that we wish to cherish at all seasons, and for whom there should be no hunting, either fair or foul.

“These birds, even though a couple of them are cousins to the Woodcock, are so small of body (their long wing in flight giving a deceptive idea of their size) that their flesh is of no account, save to either the starving, who are bound by no laws, or the glutton seeking for an article of food to whet a jaded palate, like the old emperors of Rome who ate nightingale’s tongues, forsooth! We do not wish to breed or encourage such barbarians in our America. At the same time, these birds have great value in their insect-eating capacity.”

“Pop says they always used to shoot Meadowlarks when he was a boy, and up to not very long ago,” said Tommy, “and Yellowhammers and Pigeons and Doves and Robins, too, but now nobody dares, except on the sly. Anyway, the Wild Pigeons grandfather tells of are all gone, and I’ve only seen a couple of Doves this year.”

“The birds you speak of are now protected by law, here in Connecticut,” said Gray Lady, “though in some states they are not, but the game-birds I mean are the little Killdeer Plover, and the Upland and other small Plovers, together with the Sandpipers, both of fresh and salt water.”