FEEDING HABITS 189 



in teaching them what to eat. Perhaps Nature has accordingly provided the chicks with the 

 "pick-up" habit. It would seem all grouse exhibit it more or less throughout life. 



Chicks seem at first to pick at items which move or are small and contrast with their 

 surroundings. Whether they have a "feel" for those which have food possibilities, whether 

 the mother, in a way too subtle for detection by human eyes or ears, instructs the chicks as 

 to which items, among those picked up, are to be eaten, or whether they learn purely by 

 trial and error, can only be guessed. Certain it is that the chicks are constantly picking up 

 small articles, only a fraction of which are actually eaten. 



By the time grouse are half grown this early caution in accepting foods has developed into 

 a habit. An instance comes readily to mind. In trapping grouse, a comparatively simple pro- 

 cedure in the deep woods where they are tame, it was found that birds come readily to feed- 

 ing stations established before the ground becomes snowbound. However, once snow forced 

 them to seek their food largely among the treetops, many grouse exhibited a surprising un- 

 willingness to return to a diet of fern leaves, thorna])ple fruits and other presumed delicacies 

 previously eaten. Likewise illustrative is the difficulty experienced in getting captive birds, 

 long used to eating grain and pelleted mash, to take foods that are staple for their wild 

 brethren. Hand-raised grouse may starve rather than change to a diet of the buds so ap- 

 petizing to free-living birds. Five bushels of beechnuts contributed to the Investigation re- 

 mained largely untouched because of the difficulty of convincing some 200 grouse that they 

 were good to eat. 



There is something deeper than mere caution involved here, however, for the birds. Imth 

 in captivity and at feeding stations, iiurease markedh their consuni|)tion of corn as the 

 weather becomes colder. iNormally little of this grain is taken, but as the temperature ap- 

 proaches zero this tendency is reversed. Here is a problem for the bird physiologist ( and 

 psychologist) to answer. 



Amount of Food Eaten 



The daily and seasonal consumption of food by wild grouse is not susceptible of accurate 

 measurement, but conclusions from the record. |)ie(emeal though it is, are not without in- 

 terest and probable value. 



The daily intake varies with the availability and character of the food, the age of the 

 bird, the weather, and a host of other factors. A chick will take unlit'lic\al>!e amounts of 

 easily digested insects and succulent vegetation in the course of a single day"s feeding. In 

 captivity it requires from six to ten mealworms each an inch long to satisfy a week-old bird. 

 These may be fed at half hour intervals. Two 7-week-old birds raised under semi-wild con- 

 ditions, each proved equal to consuming 30 blueberries, several raspberries and from six to 

 ten medium-sized grasshoppers at a meal. Leaves and buds in surprising quantities were also 

 much relished. The same birds three weeks later were each consuming a head of lettuce as 

 large as themselves each day. The astonishing total of 4,350 strawberry seeds, perhaps rep- 

 resenting 50 fruits, was found in the crop and gizzard of one gluttonous young bird col- 

 lected in August in the Adirondacks. More than one day's food intake, however, was prob- 

 ably here represented. From an August adult in the same region were taken 20 whole 

 strawberries and more than 6,000 seeds. 



The largest crop examined, containing 153 cc, was that of a bird shot in spring in the 

 Catskills. Nearlv two-thirds of the contents consisted of leaves of mountain laurel (KaJmia 

 latifolia), though there were 288 buds of aspen (Popiihis tremuloides) also present as well 



