HUDSONIAN SPRUCE GROUSE 121 



proud title of " fool hen." As a result, wherever man appears, the 

 spruce grouse rapidly diminishes in numbers, and, in the vicinity of 

 villages or outlying posts, is not to be found. It is a bird of the 

 northern wilderness, of thick and tangled swamps, and of spruce 

 forests, where the ground is deep in moss and where the delicate 

 vines of the snowberry and twinflower clamber over moss-covered 

 stubs and fallen, long-decayed tree trunks. 



Although spruce grouse are resident wherever found even to the 

 northern limit of their range, a certain extent of movement occurs 

 among them in winter, dependent probably on the food supply and 

 not on the severity of the cold. 



Courtship. — As with the ruffed grouse, " drumming " by the wings 

 is an important feature of the courtship, but in this the spruce grouse 

 has not reached so high a degree of evolution. It appears to be at 

 a stage midway between the bird that in courtship flies with rapidly 

 and noisily fluttering wings and the bird that stands still and flutters 

 or " drums " with its wings. 



J. L. Devany (1921), writing of the courtship of the spruce grouse, 

 says: 



His favorite location at such a time is between two trees standing apart some 

 20 or 30 feet, and with the lower branches large and horizontal. Perched on 

 one of these branches he pitches downward, pausing midway to beat and flutter 

 his wings, and ascend to a branch of the opposite tree. After a short interval 

 this manoeuver is repeated and so continued by the hour, swinging back and 

 forth from tree to tree, the time between each swing being as exact as if 

 measured by a watch. If such an ideal situation is not at hand, the fact does 

 not prevent the " fool ben " from giving vent to his exuberance. Selecting a 

 small open space among the bushes, he takes his stand in the center and, like 

 a jack-in-the-box, pops up a few feet in the air and, giving his triumphant flut- 

 tering, drops again to earth * * *. The sound produced by the drumming 

 of the Canada grouse can in no-wise compare with that of the ruffed grouse; 

 it has neither the roll nor the volume. It is in fact little more than a flutter, 

 such as might be made by birds forcing their way through thick branches after 

 buds or berries. Unlike the ruffed grouse, however, he seems to have no very 

 strong objections to an audience. The performance of a ruffed grouse can 

 only be witnessed by the exercise of stealth and caution. Our little spruce 

 partridge on the other hand will peer and look at the intruder, and then, as if 

 suddenly remembering, go through his evolutions with a gusto that excites 

 our startled amusement. Though the drumming of the grouse is peculiar to 

 the male, its practice is not confined to the nesting season alone, but may be 

 heard in any month of the year, and occasionally at any hour of the day or 

 night. 



Everett Smith (1883) thus describes the performance: 



The Canada Grouse performs its " drumming " upon the trunk of a standing 

 tree of rather small size, preferably one that is inclined from the perpendicular, 

 and in the following manner : Commencing near the base of the tree selected, 

 the bird flutters upward with somewhat slow progress, but rapidly beating 



