“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!’