230 FOOD HABITS AND REQUIREMENTS 



most abundant. The drawing power of a beech ridge in a good nut year is well known to 

 many grouse hunters. The Investigation has records of grouse being flushed from thornapple 

 clumps well over half a mile from their usual coverts. Hedgerows with choke cherries and 

 frost grapes ofttimes furnish the incentive for a bird or a brood to feed at a considerable dis- 

 tance from its normal haunts. Sj)iller''" records concentrations of birds in fall feeding areas 

 in groups too large to have been drawn from the immediate locality. So far as one can judge, 

 these excursions may represent a temporary letting down of territorial bars for the old birds; 

 birds of the year of course have not as yet established territories. 



From the first of November, or earlier, especially if there is a blanket of snow, the birds lyH- 

 ally forsake such exposed feeding places in favor of those closer to adequate shelter. 



Not as pronounced, but still definite, is the tendency to frequent cut-over areas, woods edges 

 or overgrown pastures where the vegetation is varied and luxuriant. Here are found ample 

 amounts of easily obtainable food combined with adequate shelter. The Investigation found 

 these areas especially attractive in summer, when they were utilized by 26 per cent of the birds 

 in contrast with 13.9. 8..5 and 13.6 per cent for fall, winter and spring respectively (table 

 152, p. 818). 



Broods in particular are to be found in the slashings during the warmer months (table 

 135, p. 801). Though these may occasionally form a dense tangle, the spots most frequented 

 may be rather open with food and cover interspersed. In fact there is a tendency to shun 

 dense cover when not associated with a variety of other vegetation, especially in the summer 

 and fall. This applies also to evergreen plantations. 



Observations do not indicate that adults need to travel far beyond the boundary of their 

 established territories for food at any season of the year. The usual territory of a grouse in- 

 cludes winter shelter, spring breeding grounds and summer and fall feeding coverts. If all 

 of these are not present within easy flying radius, say one-half mile, it is not likely many 

 grouse will set up housekeeping there until Nature or man provides the missing requirements. 



COMPETITION WITH OTHER SPECIES FOR FOOD 



Few species are less affected by competition for food, especially in winter than is the 

 ruffed grouse. Adequate quantities of buds are always available. It is therefore no hard- 

 ship to share the various berries, fruits and seeds, even in hard winters, with other birds 

 and mammals. Grouse are quite independent of grains such as buckwheat and corn. 



A possible relationship between adverse growing seasons, resulting in a lowering of the 

 nutritive value of grouse foods, and the health of the birds the following spring has al- 

 ready been mentioned. If this hypothesis is ever verified, one might wish that the grouse 

 were more keenly interested in the more nutritious cereal.* and berries in addition to buds. 

 However, fundamental grouse feeding habits are not easily changed as was demonstrated 

 on the Connecticut Hill area in the fall of 1932, when 240 shocks of buckwheat were placed 

 in well occupied cover. Only one bird was found to have utilized the grain for food. 

 Similar results have been noted in attempts to entice grouse to return to such favored fall 

 foods as beechnuts and tliornapples made available at feeding stations after winter snows 

 had forced them to adopt a diet consisting mainly of buds. 



-Ml this tends to indicate that grouse are not hard-puslioil for food even in winter and 

 that other species of wildlife do not compete seriou.-Iv with it in this respect even at that 

 season. 



