Similar behavior has the ruffed grouse which you may still find occasionally in the deeper woods.  Stepping over the fallen tree you send the little yellow-brown babies scattering, like fluffy golf-balls rolling for cover.  Invariably the old bird utters a cry of pain and distress, puts her head down low and skulks off through the grass and ferns while the chicks hasten to hide themselves.  Your natural inclination is to follow the mother, and then she will take very short flights, alternated with runs in the grass, until she has led you far from her family.  Then a whirr of strong wings and she is gone back to the cover where she clucks them together.  But if you first turn your attention to the chicks the mother will turn on her trail, stretch out her long, broad, banded tail into a beautiful fan, ruffle up the feathers on either side of her neck and come straight towards you.  Often she will stretch her neck and hiss at you like a barn-yard goose.  There is a picture of the ruffed grouse worth while.  You will learn more about the ruffed grouse in an experience like this than you can find in forty books.  If you pause to admire this turkey-gobbler attitude of the grouse she thinks she has succeeded in attracting your attention.  The tail fan closes and droops, the wings fall, the ruffs smooth down.  With her head close to the ground, she once more attempts to lead you from her children.  If you are heartless enough you may again hunt for the chicks and back will come the old bird again, almost to your feet, with feathers all outstretched.

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Creamy clusters of the bunch-flower rise from the brink of the brook and near-by there are the large leaves of the arrow-head, with its interesting stalk, bearing homely flowers below and interesting chalices of white and gold above.  Shining up through the long grasses, the five-pointed white stars of the little marsh bell-flower are no more dismayed by the stately beauty of the tall blue bell-flower over the fence, with its long strings of blossoms set on edge like dainty Delft-blue saucers, than the Pleiades are shamed by the splendor of Aldebaran and Betelguese on a bright night in November.  Clover-like heads of the milkwort decorate the bank, and among the mosses around the bases of the trees the little shin-leaf lifts its pretty white racemes.

Twisting and twining among the hazel, long stems of wild yam display pretty leaves in graceful strings, each leaf set at the angle which secures the greatest amount of light.  On the wire fence the bittersweet hangs and reaches from thence to the top of the low hawthorne, seeking the strength of the sun for the ripening of its pods, which slowly change from green to yellow as the month advances.  Thickly-prickled stems of green-brier, the wild smilax, rise to the height of the choke-cherry shrubs and the branches lift themselves by means of two tendrils on each leaf-stalk to the most favorable positions for the sunlight.