rREFACE 



lion Uepartnu'iit to inaujiurale a five-year study of the bird, more thorough and complete 

 than any made before. Unlike many surveys, conceived in the necessity of the moment, this 

 one cut its teeth, waxed strong and matured, with the sympathetic backing of sportsmen, 

 into a full-fledged Investigation. 



Its organization and administration have been the direct responsibility of the senior author 

 of this Report since its inception althouifh. for the most [)art. matters of procedure and 

 policy ha\e been decided in coiisullation with the other authors, who likewise were directly 

 responsible for research into various phases of the broad problem. Thus this report is the 

 result of the comliincd efforts of a group of research workers, at first small in number, later 

 enlarged to include many specialists in particular fields. 



As time went on. the scope of the Investigation widened. i\ew horizons were brought to 

 \iew and unsuspected fields discovered which had to be cultivated before a harvest of facts 

 could be reaped. The original five-year plan stretched to thirteen years. Though a stopping 

 point has been reached, the end to productive fact finding is not yet in sight. 



No reasonable amount of time or effort has been spared to make this study comprehen- 

 sive. The work was planned to secure comparable pictures of field conditions throughout the 

 periods of increasing, of maximum, of decreasing and of minimum grouse abundance. Field 

 observations were supplemented by laboratory experiments and examinations wherever nec- 

 essary and possible. In fact, the State's Wildlife Research Centei near Albany was one direct 

 outgrowth of the Grouse Investigation. 



To allow for regional variations, comparable life history studies covering four widely sep- 

 arated areas in the State were inaugurated in 1931 and carried on. for the most part, to 

 date. 



The problems to be considered were early divided by the Investigation into ten factors, each 

 possessing the |)ossibilitv of markedly infiuencing grouse abundance. Attention was first 

 focused on obtaining basic life history facts covering food and shelter requirements, repro- 

 ductive capacity, weather relationships and the jiart played by jiredalors. diseases and para- 

 sites, and by man. General habits of the grouse were thoroughly studied, as were the factors 

 limiting the successful artificial propagation of the birds. Only recently there has been added 

 an important study of grouse physiology. 



All data, no matter how apparently insignificant, were carefully noted, recorded and an- 

 alyzed. Modern statistical methods and machines have been called into play and. through 

 years of constant work, more than a million records have been coded, punched on statistical 

 cards and run througli statistical counting and sorting machines to complete the desired 

 correlati(nis. To avoid ]nissihle })itfalls, each of tiie 186 tables here ])resented has been 

 checked carefully bv the latest biological statistical methods. 



To carry on the Investigation has been our pleasure as well as our work. How efficiently 

 we have done It. only time can prove. To each generation the efforts of tho.^e preceding 

 often ajjpear ineffectual and misguided. Wildlife research workers and sportsmen in the 

 future, with their more advanced viewpoints and resources, made possible by past successes 

 and failures, may view our efforts in the same light. Indeed, it should be so. AH prowlh 

 is based on going further with being discontented uilii present results. 



Though, in part, the research has been tedious in detail, as a whole it has bc<'ji iiil<'i('sting 

 and fruitful and often surprising in results, ('ertainly it has given us a new conception of 

 some of the poweifnl forii's wliiili are secretly working under the surface of .Nature. It has 



