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.