Food and Water 171 



References listed for animal food records are cited fully in the list at 

 the end of this chapter. "N. Y. S. Cons. Dept. Ann. Rep." refers to 

 Annual Reports of the New York State Conservation Department. 

 "F. C. Edminster" indicates records obtained by the author: the 

 identifications for these are by John C. Jones. 



I am indebted to Earl C. Murdoch, formerly of the U. S. Soil 

 Conservation Service for assistance in checking insect names and in 

 arranging them in order, and to Dr. J. C. Bradley of Cornell Uni- 

 versity for checking names found in references. 



It will be noted that in genera having records of definite species 

 eaten, there is often also a listing of the genus "sp." This may in 

 some cases result in duplication since the material identified only 

 to genus by one author may be the same as one fully identified by 

 another. Since such duplication is not definite, it was determined 

 best to list them both when this situation arose. 



The above summary of ruffed grouse food-habit records ( Table 7 ) 

 covers 321 specimens received by Dr. A. A. Allen in connection 

 with his disease studies between 1925 and 1930. The analyses were 

 largely made by his students. Only incidence of occurrence of each 

 type of food is available since volumetric measurements were not 

 made. This material has not heretofore been published. 



QUALITY OF DIFFERENT GROUSE FOODS 



Wild-life foods have been variously classified according to their 

 availability, palatability, and physiological effects ( Leopold, 1933 ) . 

 Terms such as "preferred," "staple," "incidental," "emergency," 

 "stuffing," and "salad" have been used to distinguish and describe 

 them. The first three of these adjectives apply to many grouse foods 

 according to their quality. 



A preferred food is one that is selected by the bird when other 

 usable items are available. It stands among the highest ranks of 

 palatable foods. 



A staple food is one that furnishes a large proportion of the bird's 

 food in a given season, and probably is highly palatable. However, 

 it may be lower in the scale of palatability than the preferred foods. 



Incidental foods are those taken normally in small quantities and 

 quite variably in different localities. They either rank below staple 

 foods in the palatability scale or are less available. 



