REDRUFF: THE STORY OF THE DON VALLEY PARTRIDGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 91

REDRUFF: THE STORY OF THE DON VALLEY PARTRIDGE.

(B'eing a digest of the story of that name in Thompson Seton’s “Wild Animals I Have Known.”) The baby partridges were one day old and the mother was taking them down to the stream to drink. She crouched low as she went, for the woods were full of enemies; and the tiny pink legs that carried the twelve little fluffy balls of down were yet very fragile. Always the mother grouse searched bush and grass and sky for enemies, and an enemy she found,. Across the meadow was a great fox, and he was coming their way and would surely either wind them or strike their trail. In a low firm voice the mother cried. “Krrr! kr.rr, which means “Hide! hide,” and the little ones scattered. * One dived under a leaf, another between two roots, another into a hole, and all ihe .X’e&c into different little hiding-places. There was but one who could not find a refuge, .so he squatted very flat upon a yellow chip and closed his eyes tight, sure that now he waa ql ßut tbs' mother flew straight towards the fox, alighted beside him, and then flung herself, flopping, upon the ground She was dreadfully lame-at least, so thought the fox —and piteously whined for mercy. Oik, ■ of the cunning of a fox, but the canning of a mother partridge is far, fai Mister Fox, ple-ased mightily -at -U-. . easy prize, turned with a dash and caugiiL tf hast, no he didn’t quite catch-Mra and would have caught her, huo a sapling came just between; and the partridge dragged herself clumsily 1H - . 10-r Reynard jumped the log and keenly followed the bird who now, seennnglv a, nii i<!« lame, made the pace faster and faster, it was very strange, for now nve mmmos had gone since the chase began and h e , the •swift-foot, ' had not yet caught her. I he partridge seemed to gain strengtn as the race proceeded, and after a quarter oi a mile—a quarter of a mile in the opposite direction from the chicks—the bird rose with a denciv*e whirr, became un-aocouncably quite well, and flew off through the wood, leaving a very foolish fox behind. And now that he had tiros to think he remembered that this was not the first time he had thus been £e in%ho meantime Mother Partridge, flying - round in a wide circle, came m a roivnd-ab-.ut way to the fluff-balls hidden -n the era's The wild bird’s memory for places is fo keen that she alighted on the very blade of cr-rasG she last trod on wbeu sho left the vicinity of her chicks. Fondly she admired the perfect stillness of her little ones; even at her step not one stirred, and the little fellow on the chip only closed' his eyes a trifle tighter. ~ “Kreet!” (come children), said tbe mother, and instantly twelve little balls of fluff came forth from their twelve different hidingplaces. Then -as there was an open space to cross before they reached the water the i mother spread her fantail and kept off a.j danger. of sunstroke from the chicks until | they reached the stream. Th a little fellow's copied their mother, and coon ~ they learned to drink and to give thanks at every sip. Then she led them by easy stages to the meadow' to where there were a number of great grassy domes. These were ant-hills. The mother stepped on one, and gave half a dozen vigorous scratches with, . h-r claws. The ant-hill was broken open, i and. the ants swarmed out. Some ran round tbe hill, having no better plan, but the more sensible ones began to carry away fat. white c-o-o-s. The old partridge seized one of these e"o-3 in her beak, dropped it upon the ground onoe or twice, and then swallowed it. All the chicks stood round and watched the operation. Then the little one that had sat on the chip picked up an ant egg. dropped it a few times, and then swallowed it; thus he learned to eat. Within twenty minutes all of them could swallow their ant eggs comfort- , ablv. They were delicious, and when the mother had broken open more ant-hills the chicks crammed their crops until they could . eat no more. ; Then they all crept cautiously up the stream, and on a sandy hank they lay for the rest of tbe afternoon and learned how pleasant it was to feel the cool powder , running between their hot little toes. Copy- ; in? their mother, they lay on their sides 1 and scratched with their tiny feet, and flopped with their wings, though their wings , were only marked by a little tag on each. I side. That night Mother Partridge took ! them all into a dry thicket near by, where the dead leaves would give ample warning ! of any enemy’s approach. There they . cuddled down and slept trustfully against . their mother’s warm body. On the third day they had grown stronger and larger, so that now they no longer had to go round an acorn; they could even scramble over a-pine-cone. “'Their start in life wias a. good mother, good legs, a few reliable instincts, ; and a germ of reason. It was instinct— | that is, inherited habit—which taught them 1 to* hide .at the word from their mother; it , was instinct that taught them to follow ; her, but it was reason that made them keep : under the shadow of her tail when the sun j was sinking down, and from that day reason entered more and more into their expand- > ing lives. Next day the blood quills had j sprouted the tips of feathers. On tbe next j the feathers were well out, and a week later , the whole family of downckd babies were . strong on the wing. ’ «

Their training went on. They knew where to find the finest grasshoppers; they knew that from the currant bushes dropped the fattest worms; they knew that the ant-hills stood for a storehouse of good things; that the strawberries, though not insects, were almost as delicious ; and that where the bark had fallen from a- rotten tree trunk tuerewas sure to be a host of creepy-crawly clamcie-s. By the end of July the chicks had grown so bi°- that the mother had to stand all night in her efforts to cover them. Tney took their daily dust bath but they had moved up to another place where otner. birds were wont to besport themselves. ahe mother disliked the idea of going to this new bath, but the chicks were so .enthusiastic that 'he yielded. The sand here was much finer mid pleasanter to the touch Then came a time of sickness to them all. They ate ravenously, but were always hiinpy All the chicks were afflicted, and last of all the mother. It was a trying time for teem, biu the instinct of the mother, which had first promoted her to distrust the new sand bath, now - taught her to desert it .altogether. She could not know the cause of their illness, but the dust of the much-used bath was sown with parasitic worms, and all the. family were infested. Each suffered from a feverish headache and a wasting weakness, and all began to droop. “No natural impulse is without a purpose. The mother-bird’s knowledge of healing was only to follow natural impulse The eager, feverish craving for something, she knew not what, led her to eat, or try, everything that looked eatable, and to seek the coolest woods. And th'-re she found a deadly sumach laden with its poison fruit. A month ago she would have passed it by, but now she tried the unattractive berries. The acrid burning juice seemed to answer some strange demand of her body; she ate and, ate, ancl all her family joined in the strange feast o p ij sic. No human doctor could have hit it Letter, it proved a biting, drastic purge, the dreadful secret foe was downed, the danger parsed. But not for all-Nature, the old nurse had come too late for two of them. The weahest by inexorable law, dropped out. hnfaoblecl by the disease, the remedy was too severe for them. They drank and drank dj tna stream, and next morning did _ move when the others followed the mother. Individual characteristics now began co show themselves in the little ones. The weaklings were gone, but there still remained a fool and a lazy one. The mother showed her preference for some, but her favourite was the biggest of all, the one that at first had sat on a yellow chip for concealment. He was more obedient than the rest, besides bein'? bigger, stronger, and handsomer. I fie mother’s° soft warning notes always stayed him from a dangerous patn or a doubtful berry and the reward for this obedience was that his days were longest in the land. When the month of August came the young ones were threeparta grown. They- knew just enough to think themselves wonderfully wise. When they were smaller it was neces-- , sa , ry for them to sleep on the ground eo that, their mother could shelter them, but now she introduced them to the ways of the adult, and taught them to sleep among the bougns of the trees, for at this time the ground became more and more dangerous a.s the youn°- weasels, foxes, skunks, and minks were “beginning to run. One foolish little bird would persist in sleeping on the ground though. It was all right the first night, but the next night his brothers wore awakened by his cries. There was a scuffle and then stillness, and then the horrid sound of the crunching of bones and the smacking of I Then they were taught ‘“whirring.” This whirring serves two or three purposes. A partridge can rise from the ground silently if it wishes, but it is taught how and when to rise on the thundering wings. It warns ■all other partridges that danger is near, it unnerves the gunner, or fixes his attention on the thnnderer, and the others can sneak off in silence, or, by squatting, remain unnoticed. The birds knew what a fox -was, and that it was easy to evade it by flying to the nearest tree, but only the morheir knew what a dog. was. In September, the month when the guns appeared, came old Cuddy with his bob-tailed yellow cur. When the mother spied the dog she cried loudly “Kwit! kwit” (fly, fly). Two of the young ones thought it foolish of their mother to get so excited over a fox, and they merely flew to the nearest tree and laughed down at the strange barking fox. Presently there was a rustle in the grass, and then a loud bang, bang! Two poor partridges fell dead to the ground. The remaining' little grouse thus learned that a dog is not a fox, and, moreover, they had it more than ever impressed upon their minds that obedience is long life. Now' Cuddy, the possessor of the gun, lived in a wretched shanty near the River Don. He had no wealth, no taxes, no social pretensions. and no property to speak of. Be did as little work as possible and spent much time in the open air. He .prided himself on being able to tell the month of the y r ear by the taste of the partridges, which may have been very clever, but it was also proof of illegal practices, for the season for shooting partridges did not begin until the 15th of September. The birds’ chief occupation then for the remainder of the month was keeping quietly out of -reach of the guns. They still roosted on the long, thin boughs of the hardwood tree, but the leaves were falling fast. The leaves had protected them from foes in the air, and the height above ground from foes beneath them. But mow the time of the nuts was at hand, and they had to beware of the owls. As the weather was getting frosty and coons le'-s dangerous, the mother changed their roosting place to the thickest foliage of a- hemlock tree. One of the brood, however, disregarded the change and the mother’s warning. Tie went and slept in the bough that they had so long frequented but which was now' almost naked, and before the morning a great yellow owl bore him away. The mother and three young ones were now left, but they were as big as she was. One was bigger. It was he who had found a hiding-place on the yellow chip. Their ruffs had begun to show, .and they were not a little proud of them. “The ruff is to the partridge what the train is to the peacock—his chief beauty and his pride. A ben’s ruff is black, with a slight green gloss. A cock’s is much larger and blacker, and is glossed with more vivid bottle-green. Once in. a while a partridge is born of unusual .size and vigour, wheso ruff is not only larger, but by a peculiar kind of intensification is of a deep coppery red. iridescent with violet, green, and gold. Such .a bird is sure to bo a wonder to all who know him, and the little one who Had squatted on the chip, and bad always done what he was told, developed, before the Acorn Moon had changed, into all the glory of a gold .and copper ruff—for this was Redruth the famous partridge of the Don Valley.” One evening in October, as the family were basking in the sun on the edge of the wood, they lieaid the report of a gun, and

Eedruff, acting upon impulse, strutted upon a leg near by and sounded a loud whirr of defiance. Giving still greater vent to this expression of young vigour, lie whirred still more loudly, until all unwittingly bo found himself “drumming.” Pleased at his discovery, he did it again and again, and his brother and sister looked on in admiration. His mother did, too, but from that time forward, though she admired him she feared him, for that was the sign of the fullygrown cock partridge. By a strange law of Nature November brings a. weird foe. Ail partridges go crazy in the November moon of their first year. Suddenly an uncontrolable unrest seizes them, and out into the night they fly. “They go drifting, perhaps, at speed over the country by night, and are cut in two by wires, or dash into lighthouses or locomotive headlights. Daylight fin da them in all sorts of absurd places, in buildings, in open marshes', perched on telephone wires in a great city, or even on board of coasting vessels. The craze seems to i be a relic of a bygone habit of migration, and it has at least one good effect—it breaks ! up the families and prevents the constant ' intermarrying, which would surely be fatal to their race.” j The first strange feeling came over the | young birds when one evening a flock of j wild geese went honking southward over- . head. They saw that their mother was not afraid of these long-necked hawks, -vind so they mounted the higher branches of the trees and watched them disappearing into ■ the south. When the moon was full the . madness came. The family scattered. Eedruff went on two or three night excursions. He flew southward, but came to the broad expanse of Lake Ontario and turned back. So the waning .moon found' him back in the old glen where he had scent his happy childhood. | But food was scarce. Still there were rosehips to sustain life, but the snow and l frost made it hard to keep his perch while pulling off the frozen buds. His beak grew terribly worn with the work. But Nature ■ prepared him for the slippery footing: his ; toes had sprouted rows of sharp, horny | points, and these grew as the cold in--1 creased, until the first snow found him : fully equipped with snow-shoes and ioe- | creepers. His flight for food daily led him 1 further afield, and he explored the Eosedale Creek, with its banks of silver birch., and Castle Frank, with its grapes and rowan berries, as well as a place called Chesterwoeds, where other berries were to be found, i At Castle Prank he found that the men : with guns did not go inside the high fence, and this he made his home, growing wiser and more beautiful every day. So the winter wore on, and the snow melted. His hard task of pulling frozen browse for food was . ended, and thus his bill had a chance of recovering its normal shape. Then one day j the king crow at the head of his troop came : from the south telling the good news that spring had come, i “And Eedruff felt it thrill h im through j and through. He sprang with joyous vigour on a stump and sent rolling down the little ; valley, again and again, a thundering ’ ‘Thump, thump, thump., thunderrrrrrrrr.' that wakened dull .echoes as it rolled, and voiced his gladness in the coming of the spring.” Away down the valley Cuddy heard the drum call, and knew that there was a- cock partridge for him to shoot. Shouldering his gun, he tramped up the valley, but silently Eedruff made off to the Mud Creek Glen, the place where he first lived. Strange to say, he sought the very stump where first ; he thundered out his defiant note. Day j after day he sought this same log. A new , adornment, a rose-red comb, grew out above | his clear, keen eye. His ruff grew finer and j his whole appearance splendid to behold. ■ But he was very lonely now. i “Yet what could he do but blindly vent , his hankering in this daily, drum-parade, ; till on a day early in loveliest May, when the | trilliums had fringed his log with silver | stars, and he had drummed and longed, | then drummed .again, his keen ear caught a j sound, a gentle footfall in the brush. He j turned 1 to a .statue and watched; he knew i he had been watched. Could it be possible? j Yes! there it was—a form—another—a shy ■ little lady grouse, now bashfully seeking to , hide. In a moment he was by her side. Hia I whole nature sivamped by a new feeling—- . burnt up with thirst—a cooling spring in : sight. And how he spread and flashed his | proud array! He puffed his plumes and , contrived to stand just right to catch the i sun, and strutted and uttered a Low, soft j chuckle that must have been just as’ goad , as the ‘sweet nothings’ of another race, for i clearly now her heart was won. Won. really, i days ago, if only ho had known. For full j three days she had come at the loud tattoo ! and coyly admired his from afar, and felt a little piqued that he had not yet found out her. so close at hand. So. it was not quite all mischance, perhaps, that little stamp that oaught his ear. But now she meekly bowed her head with sweet submissi\ e grace the desert passed; the parchburnt wanderer found the soring at last ” Those were bright days in the gl en —the sun never .shone so brightly. There they spsn b the happy hours together, but soon the 111 t‘ e bride cause only for a short time each day to see him, and at last not at all | Why had she deserted him? He drummed | on the log, distracted, then skimmed up the j ravine to another log’ and sounded his tattoo. | But there was no reply. On the fourth day, I when he came and loudly called her, he j heard a sound in the bushes, and there was j his missing bride with ten little chicks foli lowing her. He dashed to her side, scaring | the little balls of down, only to find that the , claims of the little ones were greater than I his own. Thereupon be accepted the inev.it- . able and joined himself to the brood, caring I for them as his father never cared for him. I Good fathers among the grouse are rare, j The mother generally hides and lays her 1 eggs, only meeting’ the father at the drumming ; log or the feed ground. Some fathers take ; no part in rearing the young, but Eedruff j was an exception and joined Brownie at ; once in the charge. One day as they were ; toddling down to the stream to drink a red i squirrel watched them from a pine trunk. . He had not noticed Eedruff bringing up the ! rear at a few paces distant. With mur- | dermis intent he dashed out upon the hindmost straggler. Brownie did not see the I would-be murderer in time, but Eedruff did. j He flew straight at the squirrel, and with I the knob joints of his wings he dealt him a : terrible blow on the end of his nose. The ’ squirrel staggered and wriggled into a brush i pile and there lay gasping, the drops of | blood trickling down his nose. The partridges left him there, and he never troubled I them .again, | _ Before the chicks could fly tragedy entered I into their household. Cuddy and his dog i oame one day into the valley. They were • heading straight for the partridge family. i Eedruff ran to meet the dog, and by the | old trick led him off on a chase away down I the valley. But the man walked straight on, | and Brownie, signalling her little ones to 1 hide, ran to lead the man away as Eedruff had the clog. Skilled in all the learning of the woods, she sprang with a roar of wings right in his face, and tumbling on the

f leaves shammed lameness, whit!h for a time deceived the poacher. When she dragged one wing and whined about his feet lie knew it was a trick, and so he struck at her a savage blow. The bird avoided it, and limped behind a sa.pliug, there beating herself upon the leaves in apparent distress. Cuddy made another attempt to strike her 1 down, but, missing again, he raised his ; gun, “and, firing charge enough to kill a | bear, he blew poor, brave, devoted Brownie j into quivering, bloody rags.” The brute . knew' that the brood must be near at baud, 1 so tramped about in search, and in his search walked over the place where they were in hiding. More than one of the : silent little fellows was trampled to death beneath his clumsy feet. ! Eedruff had taken the dog away off down the valley and now returned to where he . had left his mate. It was a sad return. He i sought about and found poor Brownie’s feathers and the bloody spot on the ground, and knew the meaning of it all. What his i thoughts were no one can tell. I A moment’s pause at the scene of the miurder and then be remembered the motheri less brood, and back to their hiding-place I he flew. Only six little balls of fluff came i out to his call. He called again and again, 1 but the other four had met their death beI ueatb the feet of the poacher. Then he led , them off far upstream away from the dreadful place, to a less pleasant home but one which would give them more safety, i Here he trained them just as bis mother had trained him. As he knew so well the i country round, and had a wide knowdedge 1 and experience of life, the chicks grew and , flourished, so that when tls* summer was ; gone not a chick was lost. Time went on, and at last the Mad Moon came again and the young partridges took the craze. They ’ were of vigorous stock, though, and the craze passed away in a week, and only three had flown away for good. ( Eedruff and the remaining three were i living in the glen when the snow came. It was light, flaky snow, and as the weather ; was not very cold the3 r squatted under the | boughs of a cedar tree. But next night ■ it w.as colder and the storm had continued i all day, so Eedruff led them to a tree above 1 a drift and dived into the snow. The others followed suit, and then the wind came and covered up the holes, and in their clean white beds they slept quite snugly, for the snow is a warm wrap and the air passes through it quite easily, thus allowing them to breathe. The next night they dived again into their snowy beds, but the wind changed and the snowflakes gave place to rain. In the morning the whole wide ■world was .sheathed in ice, and when the grouse roused themselves they found that a hard, endless layer of ice had scaled them . in. E.edruff bored his way to the top of the soft snow, but there the pitiless sheet of ice defied his efforts to escape. Hammer and struggle as he might, he only bruised him i wings and head. As the slow hours wove on his efforts became feebler. He could hoar the strugglings of the others beneath the snow, but the night fell again and found them still prisoners. Hunger was beginning 1 to tell. Another weary day was spent beneath the ice crust, toiling and toiling, but , seemingly getting no nearer release. -But 1 there was a change in the weather above, I and when the second night had passed the I ice had become thinner. In the morning he ! renewed his packing, and found to his> de-r , light there was a brighter spot above him. in ■ the snow, and he. continued feebly pocking. Late in the afternoon his bill went through into the open air. New life came to him at this, and he worked hard, so that before the sun went down he had made a hole big ■enough for his head, hia neck, and his ruff to pass through. He cou'd now strike dowm- , wards, which gave him. added power, and | soon he had sprung from his fearful prison , into the open air. He flew to the nearest ; bank, ate a few berries, and then returned | to where the young birds were buried still. ; He .stamped and stamped, but got only one 1 feeble reply. Scraping on the thin ice, he soon made a way through, and Gray tail ! feebly crawled out of the hole. That was ; all. The others he was forced to leave, and i when the snow melted in the spring the j bodies came to view—skin, bone, and j feathers. ! Some time elapsed before Eedruff and Graytail full recovered from their dreadful ; experience, but good food and rest at last brought them back to proud health. Their i lives went on as usual from day to day. ; a!nd months went by, But the law of all j wild things is that they shall not die of j old age, but meet some fate worthy of tbe wild and adventurous life they have lived. Cuddy, the poacher, had never ceased to follow Eedruff, and many times the redruffed cock had escaped from the deadly guu charge. Many long shots the poacher tried, but there was always some tree, some bank, that acted as a shield at the right moment. When the snow came again Eedruff and > Graytail moved into Castle Frank woods, j Here there was a- great pine tree whose j branches began above the heads of the other j trees. It was the trunk of this tree that I concerned the partridges though, for all | around were low creeping hemlocks and j among them the partridge vine and the j wintergre-en grew, and the acorns could be j scratched from the cover of the snow. Here, j too, the great trunk, six feet through, | served as a protection from the poacher's ( gun, for when lie came the birds could creep j through the underscrub to tbe sheltered side j of the trunk, and with a loud whirr make I off, keeping the- thick trunk as a shield be--1 tween them and the would-be murderer, j A dozen times this tree had saved them | during the lawful murder season, and here j it was that Cuddy, knowing their habits, | laid a new trap. Under the bank ho j sneaked while an accomplice went off on the opposite side of the tree to drive the birds. Ho came trampling through the bushes and the birds heard the approaching danger. I Eedruff walked quickly towards the tree | in case he had to rise. But Graytail. who : was some distance up the hill, suddenly | caught eight of a new foe in the person j of the yellow cur. Eedruff, who was much j further off. could not see him for the bushes. | “Kwit, kwit!” (“Fly, fly!”) cried Graytail. i Then the dog sprang at her, and she rose to [ gain the shielding trunk, away from the gunner in the open, but right into the power of the man beneath the bank. | Bang! went the gun as she rose in the j air, and down she fell - in the snow and gasped out her life. ) But Eedruff saw the fearful danger. There was no chance to rise, so he waited in j silence. The dog came within ten feet of I him. and the stranger, coming .across to j Cuddy, passed within five. He waited until | the two men Were both together, then placing the tree trunk between himself and them, he rose safely and flew off to the lonely ■ glen. ; _ He was now alone. There was no ccssa- ■ tinn cf the war against him, and as the | winter passed ha had many narrow escapes, i He grew wilder the more relentlessly he was pursued. But Cuddy was nst to be beaten, so when a year had passed since Graytail’s death and the snow had come again, he hatched a new plot. Eight v.crcss the only

good feeding ground lie set a row of snares. A rabbit cut some of these but some remained, and Rsdruff, watching a far-off speck in the air that might turn out to be a hawk, trod on a snare and in a moment was jerked into the air to dangle by cue foot. , , . “Have the wild things no moral or legal rights? What right has man to inflict such long and fearful agony on a fellow creature, simply because that creature does not speak his language? All that day, with growing, racking pains, poor Red ruff hung and beat his great strong wings in helpless struggles to be free. All day. all night, with growing torture, until he only longed’ for death. But no one came. The morning broke, the day wore on, and still he hung there, slowly dying; his very strength a curse. The second night crawled slowly down, and when, in the dawdling house of darkness, a great Horned Owl, drawn by the feeble flutter of a dying wing, cut short the pain, the deed was wholly kind. “Now no partridge comes to Castle Frank. Its woodbirds miss the martial spring salute, and in Mud Creek Ravine the old pine drumlog, since unused, has rotted in silence away.”