98 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



ORNITHOLOGY 



It is not easy to progress far along this road because every bird sug- 

 gests so many reflections and recollections. — Richard Jeff eries. 



The Wild Drummer. 



BY EDMUND J. SAWYER, SCHENECTADY, 

 N. Y. 



What a delightful and inspiring puz- 

 zle has been the still wonderful drum- 

 ming' of the ruffed grouse ! The bird 

 has now been photographed in the act 

 from almost every conceivable point 

 of view ; each feature of the act has 

 been catalogued with painstaking care ; 

 the "drum" itself has been seen and 

 described and the last vestige of mys- 

 tery dispelled from that remarkable 

 habit which has tasked the patience 

 and skill — not to say the imagination 

 —of every bird student from Audu- 

 bon's day to our own. It is indeed 

 a mystery no longer. But why should 

 the pleasure and inspiration be any 

 the less when at daybreak we hear 

 that "thump, thump, thump, thum. 

 thm' thm' in the awakening May 

 woods? 



Last spring my tent stood nearly 

 surrounded by woods and many an 

 early morning hour I laid awake listen- 

 ing to the muffled drums, for a hundred 

 yards within the woods back of my 

 tent, half a dozen others at various 

 distances and points of the compass. 

 Thus lying in my cot I could guess 

 pretty well where each performer was ; 

 for I had searched out the drumming 

 logs for half a mile around. In ten 

 minutes I could be face to face with 

 one or another of the drummers, peer- 

 ing from my blind a few yards from 

 his log, but I was loth to break the 

 enchantment of distance. From one of 

 my blinds I had regularly at least three 

 birds besides the one just before me. 

 One of these, whose well-worn drum- 

 ming log I knew well, was in a piece 



of woods a hundred yards away across 

 a pasture, yet his drumming was almost 

 as distinct as that of the bird only six- 

 yards from me. In fact I could not 

 always be sure which of these grouse 

 was drumming without watching the 

 nearest one. If one wishes merely to 

 hear the sound for enjoyment a blind 

 is needless, the natural cover being 

 sufficient. For this purpose a closer 

 approach than two hundred feet is un- 

 necessary. Even at anything like this 

 distance, however, as little noise as 

 possible should be made, and none — 

 the person standing or sitting perfectly 

 still, while the watchful grouse rests 

 between the drumming periods. 



For my part I say let the grouse 

 drum on. The sound still thrills me 

 through every fiber. I well remember 

 the first time I heard it, and this spring 

 it fills me with the same enthusiasm. 

 For suggestiveness, association and a 

 certain wildness — the very soul of the 

 wary bird — there is not a w r ood-note to 

 compare with this. To my ear it ex- 

 presses, as no other mere natural 

 sound does, that status of the wild 

 mentality which we have so long heard 

 discussed with a warmth equalled by 

 its fruitlessness. 



The alert attitude of body, and mind 

 if you will, the earnest purpose and 

 ardor braving with discretion, lurking 

 foes, the robust health of the bird ; all 

 this (and so much more !) is expressed 

 with a wildness that makes your heart 

 go thud, thud, thud, in enthusiastic 

 response to the roll of this muffled 

 drum. In power of suggestion and in 

 the fact that it may be heard with un- 

 abated regularity in showery weather, 

 more than in tone, it is like distant 

 thunder with which it has been com- 



