168 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and a few feet from each nest the bones of the mother Grouse. A farmer 

 acquaintance told me of rinding a nest of this bird, which contained ten eggs, 

 in a fallow he was about to burn, and knowing of another nest with an equal 

 number of eggs, the thought occurred to him to put the eggs in the nest of 

 the otiier bird that would not be endangered by the fire, and watch develop- 

 ments. He had the satisfaction of knowing that the eggs were hatched. 



Eggs. — The eggs of the Canada ruffed grouse are similar to and 

 indistinguishable from the eggs of the more southern race. The 

 measurements of 71 eggs average 39.2 by 30.3 millimeters ; the eggs 

 showing the four extremes measure 44 by 31, 42.2 by 31.5, 38.6 by 

 28.7, and 38.6 by 28.2 millimeters. 



Young. — Bendire (1892) quotes the following from Ernest Thomp- 

 son Seton's notes : 



Every field man must be acquainted with the simulation of lameness, by 

 which many birds decoy or try to decoy intruders from their nests. This 

 is an invariable device of the Partridge, and I have no doubt that it is quite 

 successful with the natural foes of the bird ; indeed, it is often so with man. 

 A dog, as I have often seen, is certain to be misled and duped, and there is 

 little doubt that a mink, skunk, raccoon, fox, coyote, or wolf, would fare no 

 better. Imagine the effect of the bird's tactics on a prowling fox ; he has scented 

 her as she sets, he is almost upon her, but she has been watching him, and 

 suddenly with a loud " whirr " she springs up and tumbles a few yards before 

 him. The suddenness and noise with which the bird appears causes the fox 

 to be totally carried away ; he forgets all his former experience, he never 

 thinks of the eggs, his mind is filled with the thought of the wounded bird 

 almost within his reach; a few more bounds and his meal will be secured. 

 So he springs and springs, and very nearly catches her, and in his excitement 

 he is led on, and away, till finally the bird flies off, leaving him a quarter 

 of a mile or more from the nest. 



Plumages. — The molts and plumages are the same as in the other 

 races. There are also both color phases, gray and red. As men- 

 tioned elsewhere, these two color phases occur in all the races, but 

 in this and in other gray races the red phase is rarer and less pro- 

 nounced, the reverse being the case in the red races. 



Food. — The long list of food given for the ruffed grouse (umbellus) 

 would apply equally well for this race, with due allowance for the 

 different species of plants and insects available. Manly Hardy, in 

 some notes sent to Major Bendire (1892), says that it feeds not only 

 on the poplar buds but also on the hard old leaves. He writes : 



I have killed one with its crop filled with such leaves on the 20th of August, 

 and they eat them continuously, until the last have fallen in late October. 

 They do this when other food is abundant. Buds of willow, yellow and white 

 birch, hophornbeam, thorn plums, rosehips, leaves of tame sorrel, of the rock 

 polypod, fungus from birch trees, the seeds of touch-me-nots (Impatiens fitlra), 

 wild raisins, and highland cranberries (both species of Viburnum) form also 

 a part of their bill of fare. They seem to be especially fond of beechnuts. I 

 have a record of finding seventy-six in one bird's crop and over sixty in another. 



