66 Bird - Lore 



shelter will be better. Movements such as this take place with many birds 

 and mammals. We used to see such shif tings with buffalo, elk, deer and 

 antelope, and certain other American Grouse, and there seems no doubt that 

 they take place in the case of Ruffed Grouse and Quail. At all events, in the 

 mild weather of the middle fall. Grouse are often found in most extraordinary 

 and unexpected places, such as outbuildings, the trees or lawns near houses 

 in private places, and even the middle of a mowing lot. After the first cold 

 weather, however, the birds are hkely to choose a swamp or woods, for winter 

 quarters. 



A good dog for Ruffed Grouse is exceedingly hard to find. He should have 

 a keen nose, great caution, and the more experience the better. The scent 

 given forth by this bird so excites the ordinary dog that he loses all idea of 

 caution, and runs about as if demented. In his noisy racing back and forth, he 

 alarms the Grouse, which thus has ample opportunity to lay plans to foil its 

 pursuers. The wise old "partridge" dog acts very differently. Naturally 

 intelligent, he understands the difficulties of his task, and his experience in 

 the ways of many Grouse in other years causes him perfectly to comprehend 

 the difficulties of the task required of him. He works close to the gun, and, at 

 the faintest suggestion of the scent of a Grouse, stops and waits for his master 

 to come up. Then cautiously and in silence he works out the scent, and satis- 

 fies himself as to what the bird has done and probably now is doing; and then 

 he tries to be a Httle more cunning than the bird. Sometimes such a dog, if he 

 finds that a Grouse is persistently running before him, will leave the trail and 

 make a wide circle and go around beyond the bird, coming back from the point 

 toward which it was running, with the purpose of stopping it and making it 

 lie until the gunner comes up. 



The Ruffed Grouse is so persistently shot that in the East there are now 

 few localities where good shooting can be had. In less thickly populated dis- 

 tricts — as portions of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, New 

 Decrease York, Michigan, and Wisconsin — Grouse are still abundant. 



Even though the stock of birds in southern New England and 

 in southern New York State has been brought down very low, extermination 

 as yet has hardly come for any locality where covers suited to the Ruffed 

 Grouse remain. Moreover, in many places, first underbrush and then forest 

 have crept out into the abandoned fields, and nature is claiming her own once 

 more. Such brushy fields, after the timber grows large enough, become admi- 

 rable covers for the Grouse and, in many places, as one field is cleared another 

 grows up to forest, and the amount of woodland remains about the same. 



There is hope that in many of our thickly populated sections a few Ruffed 



Grouse will be found for many years, and a time will come 



Protection when it will no longer be fashionable to shoot Ruffed Grouse, 



but they will be protected and cherished as beautiful additions 



to an attractive landscape. 



