RUFFED GROUSE. 101 



tliej mean to those who love them ? The promise of 

 Spring, its fulfilhnent in summer, is clearly told in B(jb- 

 wliite's greeting. Then, in the antinnn, when the mem- 

 bers of a scattered bevy are signaling each other, their 

 sweet where are you f where are yoa ? is equally associated 

 with the season. 



The Bob- white nests about May 20, laying from ten 

 to eighteen white eggs in a nest on the ground. 



The Ruffed Grouse, or Partridge of the North and 

 Pheasant of the South, is properly a ti-ue Grouse, and 

 Ruflfed Grouse ^^^ ^^* ^® correctly called either Par- 

 Bonasa umheiius. tridge or Pheasant. He is a more 

 Plate XII. northern bird than tlie Bob-white, be- 



ing found south of Virginia only in the Alleghanies. 

 Requiring large tracts of woodland for his haunts, he 

 is less generally distributed and not so common as his 

 plump relative. 



I always associate the Grouse with the astounding 

 roar of ^vings made by the bird as he springs from the 

 ground at my feet and sails awaj through the forest. I 

 watch him at first with dazed surprise, then with a keen 

 sense of pleasure in the meeting. One need not be a 

 sportsman to appreciate the gamin ess of the Grouse. 



To find a hen Grouse with young is a memorable 

 experience. While the parent is giving us a lesson in 

 mother-love and bird intelligence, her downy chicks are 

 teaching us facts in protective coloration and heredity. 

 How the old one limps and flutters ! She can barely 

 drag herself along tlie ground. But while we are watch- 

 ing her, what has become of the ten or a dozen little 

 yellow balls we almost stepped on ? Not a feather do 

 we see, until, poking about in the leaves, we find one 

 little chap hiding here and another S(|uatting there, all 

 perfectly still, and so like the leaves in color as to be 

 nearly invisible. 



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