Read "The Heart of the Wild" by S.L. Bensusan online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
When he woke to being, and left the warm shelter of his mother's feathers to take a look at the world around him, the sun was smiling upon the purple heather, and a light wind was stirring the leaves of birch and mountain-ash in the plantation below. He was no more than a tiny ball of yellow fluff with some dark-brown marks on back and sides, and a chestnut patch on his head, and there were eight brothers and sisters exactly like each other, waiting for him by the side of the heather tuft under which his mother had been hatching her eggs.
His father sat on another tuft a few yards away, spreading his plumage in the sunlight, and the little grouse thought he was fortunate in having such a handsome parent. The head, neck, breast and sides of Father Grouse were of a very bright chestnut colour, with black lines across, his lower feathers were darker, but tipped with white, to show his pure Highland breeding.