122 The Ruffed Grouse 



and false lily of the valley ) is a low herb of the woodland floor, fre- 

 quently associated with conifers ( see Plate 20D ) . 



Wild Apple {Mains pumila) 



Species utilized: The records identify apple only to genus, but 

 the common wild apple (M. piimila) unquestionably supplies most 

 of the apple food taken. Cultivated apple is also eaten, as is evi- 

 denced by the damage done to apple orchards in New England, 

 and the native crabs are probably utilized too although there are no 

 specific records to prove this. 



Seasonal importance: Primarily a fall, winter, and early spring 

 food, although taken somewhat throughout the year. Fruit is of 

 some importance from late summer to winter; the buds are taken 

 all winter and the blossoms and leaves when available. 



Parts used: Leaf buds and twigs, fruit pulp, seeds, leaves, and 

 blossoms, in order of importance (see Plate 20C). 



Geographic importance: An important food from fall to spring 

 from Maine to Pennsylvania, with greatest use in New England. 

 The New York records show some inconsistencies. Darrow found it 

 among the first ten important foods in only two seasons ( one of them 

 summer), and only in the Adirondack region of the state. The 1937 

 New York report failed to list it at all among the first ten for any 

 season, and Kelso's records show a sharp break in January that is not 

 logical, perhaps due to deficiencies in the material examined. In 

 Pennsylvania and Southern New England apple appears to be 

 somewhat less important while the species is little represented in 

 the Virginia records. 



An interesting sidelight on the use of apple by grouse is the oc- 

 casional damage to cultivated orchards from budding by grouse. 

 This reached such serious proportions in parts of New England that 

 bounties were declared and damage claims paid. In the middle of 

 the nineteenth century certain Massachusetts townships paid a price 

 of twenty-five cents a head for "partridge." With the declining im- 

 portance of the apple industry, the bounties were abandoned but 

 damage has not entirely ceased. In 1924 New Hampshire paid out 

 nearly a quarter of the income from sportsmen's licenses (about 

 $25,000) on valid grouse damage claims (Bartlett, 1924), and as 

 recently as the mid-thirties, Massachusetts has paid orchard dam- 



