# Redruff explained — Wild Animals I Have Known > Chapter companion for Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson Seton. ## What happens The chapter follows the life of Redruff, a Don Valley partridge, from his hatching and early training by his mother through his struggles for survival against predators, hunters, and harsh winter conditions. It highlights his mother's clever tactics to protect her brood, Redruff's growth into a magnificent bird, his capture and escape from a snare, and his eventual death at the claws of a Horned Owl, marking the end of the Don Valley partridge race. ## Themes in this chapter ### Motherhood and Training Mother Partridge trains her day-old chicks to hide and uses a clever distraction to lead a fox away, demonstrating maternal instinct and teaching survival skills. ### Survival and Adaptation Redruff endures a snare, escapes a snow prison, and uses woodcraft to evade hunters, highlighting the struggle for survival in a hostile environment. ### Tragic End of Wild Life Redruff's death by a Horned Owl and the extinction of the Don Valley partridge race underscore the tragic fate of wildlife in the face of natural and human threats. ## Character check-ins ### Redruff The central character, a Don Valley partridge, who grows from a chick into a magnificent copper-ruffed cock, survives a snare, and ultimately dies by a Horned Owl. ### Mother Partridge Redruff's mother, who leads her brood to water and cleverly lures a fox away to protect her chicks. ### Graytail One of Redruff's siblings, the only other survivor of the snow prison, who later accompanies Redruff. ### Reynard The fox that is tricked by Mother Partridge's feigned injury and later returns to the snow prison. ### Cuddy A hunter who repeatedly pursues Redruff with a dog and gun, trying to kill him. ## Key lines > She walked slowly, crouching low as she went, for the woods were full of enemies. She was uttering a soft little cluck in her throat, a call to the little balls of mottled down that on their tiny pink legs came toddling after, and peeping softly and plaintively if left even a few inches behind, and seeming so fragile they made the very chickadees look big and coarse. The mother partridge moved cautiously through the forest, aware of predators, while her tiny, fragile chicks followed her, their soft peeps barely audible. _Describes the mother's vigilance and the vulnerability of the newborn chicks._ > Have the wild things no moral or legal rights? What right has man to inflict such long and fearful agony on a fellow-creature, simply because that creature does not speak his language? The author questions the morality of humans causing prolonged suffering to animals, simply because they cannot communicate in human language. _Reflects on the ethical treatment of wildlife and human cruelty._ > The wind blew down the valley from the north. The snow-horses went racing over the wrinkled ice, over the Don Flats, and over the marsh toward the lake, white, for they were driven snow, but on them, scattered dark, were riding plumy fragments of partridge ruffs⁠—the famous rainbow ruffs. And they rode on the winter wind that night, away and away to the south, over the dark and boisterous lake, as they rode in the gloom of his Mad Moon flight, riding and riding on till they were engulfed, the last trace of the last of the Don Valley race. The wind carries the last remnants of Redruff's feathers across the frozen landscape, symbolizing the end of the Don Valley partridge lineage. _Poetic description of the extinction of the local partridge population._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/wild_animals_i_have_known_se/chapters/redruff - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/wild_animals_i_have_known_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/wild_animals_i_have_known_se/chapters