Man's Relation to the Grouse 267 



is but a fond memory in the lore of the old timers, any one of whom 

 will delight in "pouring it on" in front of a crackling hearth on a cold 

 winter's night, recreating the exploits of "good old Pooch," known 

 in more dignified circles as "Royal Master Skylark of Worthingdon." 



One of the most significant of recent changes in hunting problems 

 is the advent of fast transportation for the general public— good 

 highways and motorcars. Only three decades ago, grouse hunting by 

 any individual was confined to the few square miles that he could 

 reach from home on foot, or from the terminus of a short buggy or 

 train ride. How vastly different it is today. We jump in the car and 

 in an hour we are at coverts forty miles away. An hour's try at this 

 locale and we are off again, and in a single day we have taken a 

 quick course tlu^ough several coverts scattered over a hundred miles 

 or more. This increased mobihty has aided materially in adding to 

 the number of hunters, hence to the problem of finding good hunt- 

 ing for all. 



At the same time that so many roads were becoming arterial high- 

 ways in the Northeast, other dirt roads that proved to be back roads 

 have become abandoned and inaccessible to modern automobiles. 

 Thus the hunter's ability to get around to the coverts has increased 

 in the broad sense while actually decreasing locally in many areas 

 where there is good grouse range. 



The net effect of the changes in transportation are hard to sum 

 up, but are probably not seriously affecting the grouse. Whereas 

 formerly each hunter traveled in his own back yard, he's now in 

 someone else's. And the increase in grouse hmiters has not kept pace 

 with that of hunters in general, thanks to the pheasant and rabbit. 



AS A FARMER AND LUMBERMAN 



Land Clearing and Farming. When the white man first began hack- 

 ing at the forest wilderness in the eastern states, he found game 

 generally plentiful around the new clearings. This caused the falla- 

 cious belief in the supposed abundance of game throughout the 

 wilderness, for it seemed "self-evident that if wild life was abundant 

 around the settlers' clearings, it must have been more abundant 

 where man had not intruded" ( Edminster, 1941 ) . It did not occur 

 to him that his very clearings were aiding in producing this game 

 supply. 



