“Yes, but how did they dance?” persisted Dodo.

[Illustration:  American Woodcock.]

“Oh! like crazy things with wings!  First one ran around a little and whistled; then one jumped right off into the air, making a whirring with his wings until he was way up out of sight, and then after a little while he came pitching down zig-zag, like a kite that has lost its tail, whistling something like the way a Swallow twitters, and making a queer twanging noise.  The other one stayed on the ground and jigged about all the time.  I would have liked to watch longer, but we had to find the colt, you know.”

“Now write your tables,” said the Doctor, “for it is nearly dinner-time.”

Bob White.

Length ten inches.

Upper parts mixed reddish-brown, buff, gray, and black, with a white line over the eye and a row of buff streaks on the inside wing-feathers.

Under parts white, black, and chestnut, the breast quite black and the throat pure white in the male, but buff in the female, and other markings much mixed up.

A Citizen of the greater part of temperate North America, and a very valuable one, the prince of the game birds of its family.  The bill is stout for crushing seeds, the head has a slight crest, and the feet have no feathers on the scaly part that goes from the drumstick down to the roots of the toes.

The Ruffed Grouse

Length about seventeen inches.

Upper parts mottled with reddish-brown, black, gray, buff, and whitish, in different blended patterns; on each side of the neck a tuft of long glossy greenish-black feathers in the male, much shorter and not so dark in the female; the tail in both sexes gray or brownish with black bars or mottling, especially one broad bar near the end, and gray tip of the feathers.

Lower parts light buff or whitish with many dark-brown or blackish bars, best marked on the sides.

A Citizen of eastern North America, and a valuable game bird.  It lives on the ground and looks like a small Hen, but has a longer and handsomer tail that spreads round like a fan.  The bill is stout and the head crested, like the Bob White’s; but the feet have little feathers part way down from the drumstick to the toes.

The Ruffed Grouse, like the Bob White, belongs to the Birds that Scratch.

The American Woodcock

Length ten to twelve inches—­female larger than male.

Upper parts variegated with brown, tawny, and black.

Under parts plain warm brown.

A Summer Citizen of eastern North America, wintering in southern parts of its range, and a famous game bird.  A ground bird of marshy woods and near-by fields, though he belongs to the same family as the Snipe, and is therefore classed among the Birds that Wade.  He has a plump body, with short, legs, neck, tail, and wings, a big head with the eyes set in its back upper corners, a very long bill which is soft, sensitive, and can be bent a little; and the three outside feathers in each wing are very much narrower than the rest.