"The only one I can think of this moment is one told me by the same friend who related so many bird-tales to me.
"He thought it might be possible to capture some young grouse and raise them in captivity and tame them. So, one day, while walking through an ancient wood road thickly covered with beech leaves, he found a mother with her brood of little chicks not more than a few days old.
"He endeavored to catch some and advanced toward the little fellows. As he did so, the mother uttered a hissing sound very disagreeable to the ear, and flew at him with wings spread and head low. As he did not stir she charged almost to his feet, then turned and struggled off, painfully dragging a wing as though it had been broken.
"He was so interested in watching the mother that he forgot momentarily about the chicks. He followed the poor mother for a short distance, gaining on her at every stride until he was near enough to pick her up carefully.
"Whoop—whirrr! away she flew with no indication of an injury to either wing. When he sought for the chicks not one could be seen.
"Refusing to have a grouse fool him in that simple manner, he hid among the leaves of a thicket and waited patiently.
"After a time a whirr of wings flew by the thicket and soon the mother called Kwit, kwit! Then, out of the leaves came the little fellows, and hopped about their mother. They had been hidden under leaves nearby and so quiet had they kept that not a sound or peep of any of them betrayed the hiding place."
"Did he catch them?" eagerly asked Elena.
"No, indeed, he smiled at the solicitude of the mother and the rare obedience of the children who had been taught what they must do in times of danger, so that he walked back home empty-handed."
"I s'pose wild animals eat lots of them?" ventured Hilda.