142 BULLETIN" 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



were, of awakening spring. On the soft, warm, still air there comes 

 to his eager ears the sound of distant, muffled drumming, slow and 

 deliberate at first, but accelerating gradually until it ends in a pro- 

 longed, rolling hum. The sun is shining with all its genial warmth 

 through the leafless woods, thawing out the woodland pools, where 

 the hylas are already peeping, and warming the carpet of fallen 

 leaves, from which the mourning cloak butterflies are rising from 

 their winter sleep. Other insects are awing, the early spring flowers 

 are lifting up their heads, and all nature is awakening. The breast 

 of the sturdy ruffed grouse swells with the springtime urge, as he 

 seeks some moss-covered log, a fallen monarch of the forest, or per- 

 haps a rock on which to mount and drum out his challenge to all 

 rivals and his love call to his prospective mate. If we are fortunate 

 enough to find his throne, on which he has left many a sign of previ- 

 ous occupancy, we may see the monarch of all he surveys in all his 

 proud glory. 



Courtship. — Dr. Arthur A. Allen, who has made some careful 

 studies of the display and drumming of the ruffed grouse and shown 

 some wonderful photographs of them, has contributed, at my request, 

 a very full account of the whole performance, with some quotations 

 from other, earlier observers. I have had to condense it somewhat, 

 but it is substantially as follows : 



" In a species as well known as this familiar game bird, which has 

 claimed the attention of naturalists and sportsmen for nearly 200 

 years, and whose courtship performances have been watched and 

 described by many observers, one would not expect many discrepan- 

 cies in the accounts — at least among those recent observers who have 

 had the benefit of the arguments of the earlier naturalists. Such is 

 not the case, however, and it seems worth while, therefore, to sum- 

 marize, here, the descriptions of the plumage displaj^ and the varied 

 explanations of the drumming performance, before concluding with 

 the writer's personal experience. Published records of the court- 

 ship performances of the ruffed grouse date back to the year 1755 

 when a communication from George Edwards on the pheasant of 

 Pennsylvania was printed in the Philosophical Transactions of the 

 Royal Society of London (Edwards, 1755). In this classic com- 

 munication Edwards quotes largely from a letter received from that 

 famous naturalist, John Bartram. He says in part : 



When living, they erect their tails like turkey-cocks, and raise a ring of 

 feathers round their necks, and walk very stately, making a noise a little like 

 a turkey, when the hunter must fire. They thump in a very remarkable man- 

 ner, by clapping their wings against their sides, as is supposed, standing on a 

 fallen tree. They begin their strokes at about two seconds of time distant 

 from each other, and repeat them quicker and quicker, until they sound like 

 thunder at a distance, which lasts about a minute, then ceases for 6 or 8 



