Biography 31 



females, it is the one display that sets him definitely apart from his 

 sisters. Grouse have been known to drum during every month of the 

 year and during every hour of the day and night. The period of 

 really intensive drumming, however, is the early spring during late 

 March and April. The amount of drumming begins to increase in 

 early March and tapers off in early May. There is also a short period 

 in midautumn when this activity increases for a few weeks. Apart 

 from these periods drumming is only occasional and spasmodic. 



The act is usually performed on a log, but in the absence of appro- 

 priate, prostrate logs, mossy mounds or boulders, stone walls, rail 

 fences, or similar objects are sometimes used for the stage. The log, 

 or logs, selected are usually of considerable diameter, averaging 

 around twenty inches. They may vary greatly in length but usually 

 are not less than ten feet, and are almost invariably long-fallen and 

 moss-covered. Drumming always takes place at one spot. Since the 

 same log is often used many years, this spot becomes well worn, 

 e\'en below the moss covering and the bark. The bird roosts at vari- 

 ous places on the log most of the nights of the spring mating season 

 and hence a well-used log will have many droppings piled on it. 

 Considerable drumming-log roosting is also done through the fall 

 and winter months, and the identity of a drumming log is most easily 

 made by the presence of piles of droppings and the telltale worn 

 spot. 



Anyone who lives in grouse country can hardly be considered an 

 experienced woodland naturalist if he has not witnessed a wild 

 drumming grouse. It is one of those supreme thrills that makes life 

 so surelv worth living in a world full of sadness and strife. A careful 

 stalker may approach a bird guided by the sound of the drumming 

 if there are enough low-hanging evergreens or other cover to obscure 

 the approach. However, the surest way is to locate a log in regular 

 use, then sleep near it overnight. By building a screen of evergreen 

 boughs in front of the blanket roll, about twenty or thirty feet from 

 the log, the thrilling sight may be obser^^ed with comparative ease. 

 Any movement must be made with the gi'eatest of caution, for the 

 slightest disturbance and the grouse will be gone in a flash. 



Before a cold April dawn in the spring of 1931 I doubled my 

 "frozen" feet under me in the sleeping bag with slow, soundless 

 movement so as not to disturb the cock grouse sleeping on his drum- 



