The Ruffed Grouse. 291 



Audubon says that tlie prevailing notion wliich exists in almost 

 every district where these birds are numerous, that on firing at 

 the lowest bird perched on a tree, the next above will not fly, and 

 that by continuing to shoot at the lowest in succession, the whole 

 may be killed, is contradicted by his experience ; for on every 

 attempt vvlii( h he has made to shoot several in this manner on the 

 same tree, his eflbrts have proved unsuccessful, unless dui'nga 

 fall of snow when he has killed three and sometimes four. The 

 same cause produces the same effect on different birds. It may 

 happen, he says, that in districts covered with deep snow for several 

 weeks, during severe winters, these birds, becoming emaciated 

 and weak, may stand a repetition of shots from a person deter- 

 mined to shoot Grouse even when they are good for nothino-, but 

 not when they are in good order. When this bird alights on a 

 tree after being raised, it stands perfectly still in an erect attitude, 

 and may then be closely approached. When the ground is 

 covered with snow sufficiently soft to allow this bird to conceal 

 itself under it, it drives headlong into it, with such force as to form 

 a hole several yards in length, re-appears at that distance, and 

 continues to elude the sportsman by flight. They are sometimes 

 caught while beneath the snow. 



The Ruffed Grouse is eighteen inches long, and twenty-three in 

 extent ; bill a horn color ; eye reddish hazel, immediately above 

 which is a small spot of bare skin of a scarlet color ; crested head, 

 and neck variegated with black, red, brown, white and pale brown '■ 

 sides of the neck furnished with a tuft of large black feathers, 

 twenty-nine or thirty in number, which it occasionally raises ; 

 body above of a bright rust color, marked with oval spots of 

 yellowish-white, spotted with olive ; the tail is rounded, extends 

 five inches beyond the tips of the wings, is of a reddish-brown, 

 barred and minutely mottled with black, and terminated by a 

 broad band of the latter color between two narrow bands of bluish 

 white, of which one is terminal ;, a yellowish white band from 

 the upper mandible to the eye, beyond which it is prolonged - 

 throat and lower part of the neck, light brownish yellow ; lower 

 ruff feathers of the same color, barred with reddish brown, the 

 upper black, with blue reflections; a tuft of light chesnut 

 feathers under the wings ; the rest of the under parts yellowish 

 white, with broad transverse spots of brownish red ; the abdomen 

 yellowish red, and the under tail coverts mottled with brown. 



