And the fox glanced up at the noisy bird as if he would have been ready to give two fat geese and a whole litter of rabbits for the pleasure of crunching her impudent neck.
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.