sweet little golden heads gravely bowing, drinking, and giving
thanks like their mother.

Then she led them by short stages, keeping the cover, to the far side of
the beaver-meadow, where was a great, grassy dome. The mother had made
a note of this dome some time before. It takes a number of such domes to
raise a brood of partridges. For this was an ant's nest. The old one
stepped on top, looked about a moment, then gave half a dozen vigorous
rakes with her claws. The friable ant-hilt was broken open, and the
earthen galleries scattered in ruins down the slope. The ants swarmed
out and quarrelled with each other for lack of a better plan. Some ran
around the hill with vast energy and little purpose, while a few of the
more sensible began to carry away fat white eggs. But the old partridge,
coming to the little ones, picked up one of these juicy-looking bags and
clucked and dropped it, and picked it up again and again and clucked,
then swallowed it. The young ones stood around, then one little yellow
fellow, the one that sat on the chip, picked up an ant-egg, dropped it a
few times, then yielding to a sudden impulse, swallowed it, and so had
learned to eat. Within twenty minutes even the runt had learned, and a
merry time they had scrambling after the delicious eggs as their mother
broke open more ant-galleries, and sent them and their contents rolling
down the bank, till every little partridge had so crammed his little
crop that he was positively misshapen and could eat no more.

Then all went cautiously up the stream, and on a sandy bank, well
screened by brambles, they lay for all that afternoon, and learned how
pleasant it was to feel the cool, powdery dust running between their hot
little toes. With their strong bent for copying, they lay on their sides
like their mother and scratched with their tiny feet and flopped with
their wings, though they had no wings to flop with, only a little tag
among the down on each side, to show where the wings would come. That
night she took them to a dry thicket near by, and there among the crisp,
dead leaves that would prevent an enemy's silent approach on foot, and
under the interlacing briers that kept off all foes of the air, she
cradled them in their feather-shingled nursery and rejoiced in the
fulness of a mother's joy over the wee cuddling things that peeped in
their steep and snuggled so trustfully against her warm body.

II

The third day the chicks were much st