All this while there had been other birds in view besides the bluejay—­chick-a-dees and nut-hatches hunting their tiny prey among the dark branches of the fir-trees, Canada sparrows fluting their clear call from the tree tops, flycatchers darting and tumbling in their zig-zag, erratic flights, and sometimes a big golden-wing woodpecker running up and down a tall, dead trunk which stood close by, and rat-tat-tat-tatting in a most businesslike and determined manner.  But the Child was not, as a rule, so interested in birds as in the four-footed kindreds.  Just now, however, a bird came on the scene which interested him extremely.  It was a birch-partridge (or ruffled grouse) hen, accompanied by a big brood of her tiny, nimble chicks.  They looked no bigger than chestnuts as they swarmed about her, crowding to snatch the dainties which she kept turning up for them.  The Child watched them with fascinated eyes, not understanding how things so tiny and so frail as these chicks could be so amazingly quick and strong in their movements.  Suddenly, at a little distance through the bushes, he caught sight of the red fox coming back, with an air of having forgotten something.  The Child longed to warn the little partridge mother, but, realizing that he must not, he waited with thumping heart for a tragedy to be enacted before him.

He had no need to worry, however.  The little mother saw the fox before he caught sight of her.  The Child saw her stiffen herself suddenly, with a low chit of warning which sounded as if it might have come from anywhere.  On the instant every chick had vanished.  The Child realized that it was impossible for even such active creatures as they were to have run away so quickly as all that.  So he knew that they had just made themselves invisible by squatting absolutely motionless among the twigs and moss which they so exactly resembled in coloring.

The fox, meanwhile, had been gazing around in every direction but the right one, to try and see where that partridge cry had come from.  He liked partridge, and it was some time since he had had any.  All at once he was surprised and pleased to see a hen partridge, apparently badly wounded, drop fluttering on the moss almost under his nose.  He sprang forward to seize her, but she managed to flutter feebly out of his reach.  It was obviously her last effort, and he was not in the least discouraged.  She proved, however, to have many such last efforts, and the last the Child saw of the fox he was still hopefully jumping at her, as he disappeared from view among the underbrush.  About three minutes later there was a hard whirr of wings, and the triumphant little mother reappeared.  She alighted on the very spot whence she had first caught sight of the fox, stood for a moment stiffly erect, while she stared about her with keen, bright eyes, and then she gave a soft little call.  Instantly the chicks were all about her, apparently springing up out of the ground as at the utterance of a spell.  And proudly she led them away to another feeding ground.