all this time the snowflakes were falling, but the grouse children were no longer afraid of them. sometimes they even chased and snapped at them as they would at a fly in summer-time. it was then, too, that they learned to use snow-shoes. the oldest child had made a great fuss when he found a fringe of hard points growing around his toes in the fall, and had run peeping to his mother to ask her what was the matter. she had shown him her own feet, and had told him how all the ruffed grouse have snow-shoes of that kind grow on their feet every winter.