2 THE RLFFEI) GROISE l.\ THE MARCH OF TIME 



raling. finrii ihc Ia\iTc(l debris, ihc Ixincs of animals Ion;: cxtiiul. One, small and characlei- 

 istically light, is identified as a part of the cranium of a ruffed prouse. Another is a complete 

 tibio-tarsus. a bone from the iej; of the same species. W ilh these are uncovered parts from tlic 

 skeleton of a turke\. 



The scene shifts to the Cumberland ('ave, broken into while makiii<! a railroad cut near Cor- 

 riganville. Maryland. Here are found the remains of a crocodilian, an extinct eland and 

 three species of giant peccaries, as well as a variety of other forms. Among them is a single 

 bird bone which proves to be a fragment of the humerus of a grouse. 



Across the continent, in Potter Creek Cave, California, searchers discovered other bones 

 belonging to the same species. Taken collectively, these discoveries, associated as they were 

 with the skeletons of animals characteristic of the Pleistocene period, place the ruffed grouse 

 as a resident in the New World more than 25.000 years ago. Many of its contemporaries 

 have vanished but not this adaptable bird. 



Records and writings about the grouse through the march of time, are engrossing and 

 sometimes surprisingly revealing of facts little realized from today's casual association with 

 this regal bird. They furnish invaluable assistance in understanding present conditions for 

 they represent a background against which to evaluate present concepts and to formulate 

 future plans. Lacking such perspective, thought and action, all to often, become dully repeti- 

 tious even though progress be our goal. 



To save a part of this material from obscurity, to make a large portit>n readily available 

 and to stimulate interest in and thoughtful consideration of it. the more informative records 

 have been coUeited for this chapter. Many of the quaint colloquialisms and the naive expres- 

 sions found in early writings have been here reproduced by way of piquing the curiosity atid 

 seasoning the Report. 



SOME RECORDS OF EARLY OBSERVERS 



Habit and size decreed for the ruffed grouse a place of importance among our native birds. 

 History has. accordingly, been generous with her records. 



One surmises, from the broken grouse bones that are occasionally excavated from their 

 camping grounds, that Indians found the birds to their liking. But it is with the white man 

 that the story really begins. 



In L531, to his roval household in Kent. King Henr\ Vlll issued a decree controlling the 

 shooting of "grows"'. The name, perhaps anglici/cd from the old Erench liriesch. meaning 

 spotted, had been applied, not only to the introduced blackcock for which the decree was issued, 

 but also to its much more common cousin, the red grouse. 



Arriving in the New World. French and English colonists. carr\ing with them impressions 

 of Old World grouse, promptly named the spotted bird whiih haunted those woodlands, 

 grouse or partridge. Farther south, it became the moimtain pheasant, a name by which it is 

 still known among the back country folk of today. 



