The same rapid development of wing may be observed in chickens and turkeys, but not in water-fowls, nor in birds that are safely housed in the nest till full-fledged.  The other day, by a brook, I came suddenly upon a young sandpiper, a most beautiful creature, enveloped in a soft gray down, swift and nimble and apparently a week or two old, but with no signs of plumage either of body or wing.  And it needed none, for it escaped me by taking to the water as readily as if it had flown with wings.

Hark! there arises over there in the brush a soft persuasive cooing, a sound so subtle and wild and unobtrusive that it requires the most alert and watchful ear to hear it.  How gentle and solicitous and full of yearning love!  It is the voice of the mother hen.  Presently a faint timid “Yeap!” which almost eludes the ear, is heard in various direction,—­the young responding.  As no danger seems near, the cooing of the parent bird is soon a very audible clucking call, and the young move cautiously in the direction.  Let me step never to carefully from my hiding-place, and all sounds instantly cease, and I search in vain for either parent or young.

The partridge is one of our most native and characteristic birds.  The woods seem good to be in where I find him.  He gives a habitable air to the forest, and one feels as if the rightful occupant was really at home.  The woods where I do not find him seem to want something, as if suffering from some neglect of Nature.  And then he is such a splendid success, so hardy and vigorous.  I think he enjoys the cold and the snow.  His wings seem to rustle with more fervency in midwinter.  If the snow falls very fast, and promises a heavy storm he will complacently sit down allow himself to be snowed under.  Approaching him at such times, he suddenly bursts out of the snow at your feet, scattering the flakes in all directions, and goes humming away through the woods like a bombshell,—­a picture of native spirit and success.

His drum is one of the most welcome and beautiful sounds of spring.  Scarcely have the trees expanded their buds, when, in the still April mornings, or toward nightfall, you hear the hum of his devoted wings.  He selects not, as you would predict, a dry and resinous log, but a decayed and crumbling one, seeming to give the preference to old oak-logs that are partly blended with the soil.  If a log to his taste cannot be found, he sets up his alter on a rock, which becomes resonant beneath his fervent blows.  Who has seen the partridge drum?  It is the next thing to catching a weasel asleep, though by much caution and tact it may be done.  He does not hug the log, but stands very erect, expands his ruff, gives two introductory blows, pauses half a second, and then resumes, striking faster and faster till the sound becomes a continuous, unbroken whir, the whole lasting less than half a minute.  The tips of his wings barely brush the log, so that the sound is produced rather by the force