20 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



" crazy season." They are now preparing for 

 winter, laying in stores of fat, growing a long 

 downy covering for body and legs and ]iulting 

 on their snowshoes, which consist of little horny 

 comb-like appendages that grow from the sides 

 of the toes to help support the weight of the 

 body on the snow. 



Now comes the hunting season, when the bird 

 has need of all its wits. Its many wiles and 

 stratagems are known more or less to the hunter. 

 Commonly upon rising it goes behind a tree trunk 

 or some thick foliage and keeps this between 

 itself and its pursuer. Often it doubles upon its 

 trail, circles, and lies close until the hunter has 

 passed, rising behind him and getting safely 

 away. Sometimes it flies rapidly out of sight 

 but alights high in some tall, thick pine where it 

 remains motionless until the coast is clear, and 

 so, in one way or another, a few birds manage to 

 survive the season and then they face the winter. 

 As the inclement season comes on, they leave the 

 heights and come down into the more sheltered 

 valleys and swamps where they subsist on buds, 

 foliage, twigs, and dried berries until vernal 

 breezes blow and nature calls them again to the 

 mating. Edward Howe Forbush. 



The RufTed Grouse can be kept plentiful even 

 in closely settled farming regions, provided small 

 woods or thickets be left or are planted, and 

 foods suitable for difi^erent seasons of the year 

 are provided. Young birds are largely in- 

 sectivorous. More than 95 per cent, of the diet 

 of the young Grouse examined by Dr. Judd was 

 insects. Newly hatched chicks eat the most ; as 

 they grow older they eat fruit, and later they 

 feed on mast, grain, and buds. The study of the 

 food habits of the young has not been as ex- 

 tensive as it should be, but it indicates that 

 the chicks eat grasshoppers, cutworms, certain 

 lieetles, ants, parasitic wasps, buffalo tree-hop- 

 pers, spiders, grubs, and caterpillars. Un- 

 doubtedly many small insects and their eggs 



which are found in the woods and adjacent fields 

 will be added to the list. The beetles seem to be 

 preferred, but Dr. Judd says the Grouse he shot 

 in September, in New Hampshire, were feeding 

 largely on red-legged grasshoppers, which were 

 abundant in the pastures where the birds foraged. 

 The vegetable food consists largely of seeds, 

 fruit, buds and leaves. Mast, including hazel- 

 nuts, beechnuts, chestnuts, and acorns, are staple 

 foods, the acorns being the largest supply in 

 many regions. Acorns of the scrub oak, scrub 

 chestnut oak, white oak, and red oak are swal- 

 lowed whole. The Ruffed Grouse undoubtedly 

 eats grain and often procures it along woodland 

 roads, where it resorts to dust and to feed on the 

 abundant berries. 



More than one-fourth of the yearly food of 

 this bird is fruit. Its diet includes the hips of the 

 wild rose, grapes, partridge berries, thorn apples, 

 wild crab apples, cultivated apples, wintergreen 

 berries, bayberries, blueberries, huckleberries, 

 blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cran- 

 berries, sarsaparilla berries, and others, wild and 

 cultivated cherries, plums, haws, sumacs, includ- 

 ing the poison sumac and poison ivy, which are 

 taken with immunity. 



Sportsmen are well aware of the fondness of 

 this Grouse for wild grapes and apples, and they 

 often find them in places where grapes are plenti- 

 ful and in old fruit orchards, especially on 

 abandoned farms. The wild rose-hips and sumac 

 are excellent winter foods because they can be 

 obtained above the snow. Wild and cultivated 

 sunflowers furnish excellent food, and many 

 other fruits and seeds of varying importance 

 are on the Ruffed Grouse's bill of fare. 



Birch, poplar, willow, laurel, and other buds 

 are eaten by the Ruffed Grouse, and the budding, 

 practiced for the most part during the winter, 

 enables it to survive the severe winters of the 

 northern States and Canada, when other foods 

 are buried in deep snows. The several species 

 of birch buds are a staple. 



WILLOW PTARMIGAN 

 Lagopus lagopus lagopus (Linmcus) 



A. O. U. Number 301 



Other Names. — PtarmiRan ; Common Ptarmigan ; 

 Willow Grouse: White Grouse; Snow Grouse. 



General Description. — Length, 17 inches. In sum- 

 mer males are brownish-rufous above, barred with 

 black, and white below ; females are tawny-brown, 



above and below, barred and spotted with black. In 

 winter both sexes are white. The feet are completely 

 feathered, the tail has 14 feathers, and the tail-coverts 

 reach to the end of the tail. 

 Color. — Adult Male in Summer: Head, neck, and 



