CANADA BUFFED GKOUSE 167 



grouse, or "spruce partridge," from which it is commonly distin- 

 guished as the " birch partridge." 



William Brewster (1925) well describes its haunts in Maine, as 

 follows : 



Ranging from the lowest levels to the crests of the higher mountains it occurs 

 practically everywhere, although seen comparatively seldom among heavy, 

 unmixed spruce timber, and still more rarely in the larch and arbor vitae 

 swamps, so beloved by Spruce Grouse. It likes best to dwell in woods 

 composed of intermingling evergreen and deciduous trees. Far back in these 

 it is found oftenest about deserted lumber camps, and along old logging roads, 

 where enough sunlight has been let in to stimulate a vigorous growth of 

 underbrush ; or along the courses of alder-fringed brooks or runs, where ferns 

 flourish in rich, moist soil ; or on river banks freely exposed to the sun, but 

 densely overgrown with cornels, Viburnums, and other berry-bearing shrubs. 

 Near permanent settlements it is given to frequenting wood edges, neglected 

 pastures, and the outskirts of crudely tilled farms, where young spruces, 

 balsams, birches, maples, and alders have been permitted to spring up in 

 crowded thickets about sunny little openings filled with tall bracken. The 

 birds are here reasonably safe from human molestation, except in autumn 

 when everyone possessed of a gun bags as many of them as he possibly can. 



Nesting. — The nesting habits of this grouse are similar to those 

 of other ruffed grouse. Brewster (1925) describes three nests 

 found in May, 1896, near Lake Umbagog, Me. Of one found on 

 May 14, he says : " This nest was directly under the main stem of a 

 fallen poplar, on a dry knoll wooded with second-growth poplars 

 and birches among which were interspersed a few balsams and 

 spruces. It was 30 yards back from a public road and within 10 

 yards of an open pasture." The next day he found one " at the 

 edge of a thicket of alders covering rather wet ground, between 

 two large, buttressed roots of an old stump. Overspreading branches 

 of a small arbor vitae and Viburnum, growing close beside it, 

 screened it so perfectly that the brooding bird could be seen only 

 from the direction whence we happened to approach." On May 

 16, another " was in a very exposed situation, quite outside of the 

 border of wild cherry, mountain maple, and other undergrowth 

 that fringed an extensive forest, half-encircling an upland mowing 

 field, and in the field rather than in the forest, although but a yard 

 or two from where the latter ended. Here it was sheltered from 

 observation and from blazing sunlight by only a few dead sticks, 

 the remains of a disintegrated brush fence." 



J. W. Banks, of St. John, New Brunswick, wrote to Major Ben- 

 dire (1892) : 



Here with us a very common nesting place is what is called a fallow. This 

 is a piece of woods chopped down in the fall, to be burned when sufficiently 

 dry, usually in the latter part of May or early in June. Being composed 

 chiefly of spruce and fir, it burns very rapidly. I found two nests (or rather 

 the remains, for the eggs were badly scorched) in one of these burnt fallows, 



