202 The Ruffed Grouse 



of red foxes from eastern New York (Cook and Hamilton, 1944) 

 revealed a frequency of occurrence of grouse averaging one and 

 five-tenths per cent for the whole year; increasing to four per cent 

 in winter and five per cent in April, by June the incidence fell to 

 three per cent. No grouse parts were found in summer specimens 

 but in autumn one per cent of the scats included some grouse re- 

 mains. Dearborn (1932), writing of Michigan conditions, says of 

 the ruffed grouse in the red fox diet: "Opposition to foxes is based 

 largely on the belief that they are very destructive to game, espe- 

 cially to game birds. The only game bird of importance where most 

 of this fox material was gathered is the partridge, or ruffed grouse, 

 Bonasa umhellus, which was common there both years. According 

 to the evidence collected in this investigation, the average fox eats 

 not more than two giouse per year." Handley (1934), in reporting 

 on the analyses of both red and gray foxes in Virginia, lists no grouse 

 remains in twenty-seven summer and fall collected specimens and 

 eighty-four winter specimens. As quail were recorded in these rec- 

 ords, it may well be that the specimens were not taken in grouse 

 range. Errington (1935) reported on fox stomach analyses from 

 Wisconsin and Iowa specimens. He found no ruffed grouse in the 

 forty-six red foxes taken in fall and winter, and but one in the 

 seventy-two gray foxes taken from fall to spring. Likewise, Erring- 

 ton found no ruffed grouse remains at the one hundred and thirteen 

 red fox dens studied or in one-thousand, one hundred and seventy- 

 five feces samples. Here again the records indicate that the majority 

 of the specimens were taken from farm land and not in grouse range. 

 Analyses of one hundred and forty-eight stomachs (those that 

 contained food out of a total of two hundred and twenty) from 

 Pennsylvania (English & Bennett, 1942) showed grouse to be a 

 fairly common item of food for the red fox. Of one hundred and 

 thirty-six late summer and fall specimens, five contained grouse, 

 amounting to four and four-tenths per cent of the total volume of 

 food. In this group, grouse were exceeded in volume by six other 

 foods, all mammals, except grasshoppers. Only eleven winter stom- 

 achs were examined, and one of these contained a trace of grouse 

 remains. Two of the five grouse captured from late summer to fall 

 were in the twenty August records and constituted fifteen and six- 

 tenths per cent of the food, ranking second to remains of wood- 

 chuck. Two more grouse were among the forty-two October sped- 



