394 INFLUENCE OF MAN 



Automobiles and Highways 



Before the advent of the motor car, grouse hunting was largely confined to an area of a 

 few square miles near home which could be reached on foot, or a few selected coverts not 

 many miles away that were accessible by a short rail trip or a buggy ride. Today, a day's 

 hunting may involve two hundred or more miles of motoring and hasty inspection of a num- 

 ber of coverts where the sportsman knows, from his own experience or his guide's, that there 

 are some grouse and that he is likely to find them unless they have been disturbed or taken 

 by other hunters. Modern highways and automobiles have opened distant coverts to the citv 

 dweller. 



Coincident with the development of these arterial routes in the Northeast, many of the old 

 dirt roads, which proved to be the "back roads" of today, have become abandoned. Areas 

 once served by these roads have become inaccessible to modern cars. 



So, two changes have been working in our road systems which tend to counterbalance each 

 other. The hunter's mobility has been increased extensively but has decreased locally. The 

 net effect is difficult to evaluate but, in itself, has probablv had little influence on grouse num- 

 bers. Whereas, formerly, hunters stayed "in their own back yards," they now are in someone 

 else's back yard. Except that the total number of hunters has greatlv increased, the back 

 yards are used about as formerly. 



Roads and their accompanying poles and wires, affect the grouse in other ways than afford- 

 ing transportation for man. Collision with wires results in some mortalitv. particularly in 

 the fall "crazy flight" period, and a few birds are killed by automobiles. Roads are openings 

 and, when running adjacent to grouse habitat, may encourage concentrations at the edges. 

 This tendency is enhanced when the road ditches and margins are allowed to grow up to low 

 shrubs and vines. Added to this, the road itself, if of dirt or gravel, provides a source of 

 grit and a place for dust bathing. Whether this is a desirable condition or not depends upon 

 how concentrated the birds have become and upon whether or not hunters take too great an 

 advantage of such concentrations and overshoot the area. Generally, this is unlikelv to hap- 

 pen and roads as openings actually serve a very useful purpose. 



Guns, Traps and Snares 



llic old-fashioned sportsman paid more attention to the bobwhitc, woodcock and heath 

 hen — birds that lay better to his well trained dogs — than to that erratic bombshell, the part- 

 ridge. In those days, the nineteenth century in particular, it was the market hunter rather 

 than the sportsman who reaped the largest harvest of grouse. Throughout most of the North- 

 east, market hunting flourished until late in the century. With few restrictions the birds 

 were taken with guns, traps or snares and brought to market in the cities. 



While the guns of this era were not as efficient as are (he nioie modern weapons, thev 

 were nevertheless very effective on the relatively "uneducated" grouse of those days. For the 

 same reason, traps and snares, while less effective on the wary birds of today, were also very 

 efficient. This market hunting was business, not spoil, and ihe tools utilized had to be effi- 

 lieiit if the business were to be successful. 



Improvements in weapons have been at least |)aili;illy ollset by adaptations of the liird 

 itself to this change. Phillips'™ states: "Technical im|)r()vements in the past forty years we 

 can set aside, for the early hammer guns, in skillful hands, were nearly as effective as the more 

 dainty modern weapons." The inference will lie gathered that possibly the shooter himself 



