The eggs will hatch within two or three weeks. When they are finally hatched it is a very lively brood of chicks which she presents to the old cock partridge. The same day that they are hatched they leave the nest, and run about, and begin feeding on plant lice which are so small one can hardly see them. These will be very well for several weeks, but they finally graduate from plant lice and go to eating grubs. When a partridge chick is two weeks old it looks for all the world like a brown leghorn chick of the same age. I have often seen the old partridge and her chicks in the woods. They are very hard to catch. I have several times caught them, but it was only after a long chase. When these chicks are young, through the day they will follow their mother about picking plant lice, but each night the wise old bird finds a safe place under a log, or some thick brush and broods them under her wings just as a hen will her chickens.
There are many dangers in the great woods, so the mother bird has to sleep with one eye open, as they say. The fox may come prowl-d
