“As these two grouse rose and came up the hill toward me, beating their way masterfully up to the treetops, I had, even while getting ready to shoot, a chance to watch their flight. It does not appear that anyone can ever regard it as anything but thrilling. In our attempts at locomotion, we improve our cars, our airplanes. But the grouse, countless centuries ago, perfected a flight that has the finality of finished art. It is graceful, swift, powerful, and yet strangely enigmatic. It attains what the finest automobile strives for: formidable power immediately available and under the most delicately adjusted control.

I do not know that it is a better flight than that of the quail, but it is far more impressive. And because the grouse is a bird of the forest and must needs do constant maneuvering while in flight, I think he handles himself more deftly than the bobwhite. In the flight of the larger bird there is endless variety. Especially interesting to me are three features: one is the occasional silent rise, the big bird taking wing with hardly a sound; one is the instinctive habit of putting an obstruction between himself and his pursuer, and the other is his love of often going almost straight up to clear the trees and then tearing away over their tops, as if he were running the hundred yards in the Olympics. Indeed, the flight of birds alone would afford a man a lifelong study.”