152 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The first winter plumage is acquired by a complete postjuvenal 

 molt, except that the two outer juvenal primaries on each wing are 

 retained throughout the first year. This molt begins in summer 

 before the bird is fully grown and is generally completed before 

 October. This plumage is practically adult and the sexes are now 

 distinguishable. The new ruffs are a duller, more brownish black 

 in the young male and are at first tipped with " hazel." 



Adults have a very limited prenuptial molt, confined to the head 

 and chin, and a complete postnuptial molt in August and September. 

 The red and gray phases, most conspicuous in the tails, are present 

 in this and in all other races of this grouse, though one or the other 

 phase is supposed to predominate in each one of the races. In the 

 northern races gray tails predominate; from Pennsylvania south- 

 ward " silver tails," as they are called, are rare ; in the western and 

 northwestern races red tails are rare; New England birds, as a whole, 

 are about halfway between the extremes. " Red ruffs," birds with 

 brownish ruffs, tinged with a coppery red sheen, are occasionally 

 seen in many of the races. 



Food. — Forbush (1927) has published the most complete and con- 

 densed list of the vegetable food of the ruffed grouse that I have seen, 

 based largely on Dr. Sylvester D. Judd's report (1905a). Following 

 is his list in full : 



Nuts or Seeds : Hazelnuts, beaclmuts, chestnuts, acorns. Seeds of tick trefoil, 

 hornbeam, vetch, hemlock, pitch pine, maple, blackberry, lily, beggar's ticks, 

 chickweed, sheep sorrel, sedges, violet, witch-hazel, beech drops, avens, persica- 

 ria, frost weed, jewel weed. Buds, Blossoms or Foliage: Poplar, birch, willow, 

 apple, pear, peach, alder, hazel, beech, ironwood, hornbeam, blackberry, blue- 

 berry, spruce, arbor vitae, Mayflower, laurel, maple, spicebush, partridge 

 berry, sheep sorrel, aster, green ovary of bloodroot, clover, purslane, wood 

 sorrel, yellow sorrel, heuchera, chickweed, catnip, cinquefoil, buttercup, speed- 

 well, saxifrage, liveforever, meadow rue, smilax, horsetail rush, azalea, false 

 goat's beard, dandelion, cudweed. Fruit : Rose hips, grapes, smooth sumac, 

 dwarf sumac, staghorn sumac, scarlet sumac, poison ivy, partridge berry, thorn 

 apple, cockspur thorn, scarlet thorn, mountain ash, wintergreen, bayberry, 

 blackberry, huckleberry, blueberry, cranberry, sarsaparilla berries, greenbrier, 

 hairy Solomon's seal, smooth Solomon's seal, black raspberry, raspberry, domestic 

 cherry, cultivated plum, wild black cherry, wild red cherry, elder, red elder, 

 black haw, nannyberry, withe rod, maple-leaved arrow wood, high-bush cran- 

 berry, mountain cranberry, snowberry, feverwort, black huckleberry, black 

 aider, flowering dogwood, bunchberry, cornel, silky cornel, pepperidge, mulberry, 

 bittersweet, manzanita, barberry, Virginia creeper. 



Doctor Judd's analysis (1905a) showed 89.08 per cent of vegetable 

 matter and 10.92 per cent of animal matter in the crops and stom- 

 achs of 208 grouse, collected in every month of the year in Canada 

 and in 14 States. He says : 



The animal food is almost all insects. The vegetable food consists of seeds, 

 11.79 percent; fruit, 28.32 percent; leaves and buds, 48.11 percept, and miscel- 



