158 The Wilson Bulletin— No. 61 



were taken in Wayne county. It has been the favorite theory 

 of one of my sportsman friends, that inasmuch as he and his 

 party had killed 125 birds the previous season in this one 

 locality, about 100 of them: being males, their places had been 

 filled by the more numerous Canadian Rufifed Grouse from 

 the north. Mr. Witmer Stone of the Philadelphia Academy 

 of Natural Sciences examlined my specimen and I am sure he 

 will pardon me for quoting him \v)ithoiit permission : "I have 

 seen others like it from the state, and some that were even 

 nhorc gray; unfortunately, however, I have not a good series 

 here for comparison. The case is just this way: (a) If the 

 Canadian birds are all or nearly all gray and the southern 

 birds practically all red, then Pennsylvania is the meeting 

 ground of the two races and such a bird as yours is an inter- 

 mediate. (b) On the other hand if you get both red and gray 

 birds, both north and south, then the difference is dichromatic 

 or individual, like the Screech Owl, and there is no Canadian 

 race, even though gray birds predominated somewhat to the 

 northward or vice versa. I have not the material to settle 

 this matter, but Edwyn Sandys and L. E. Van Dyke in 

 Upland Game Birds say of the Canadian birds that they 

 have 'shot hundreds of them in every Canadian province ex- 

 cept one * * * * have bagged smoky tufts, black tufts, brown 

 tufts and no tufts ; gray tails, grayish-brown tails, and reddish- 

 brown tails ; have had all but one of them in the same bag, and 

 killed a brown tail with one barrel and gray tail with the other.' 

 If this is really the condition in the stronghold of togata then 

 I should say there was only one Ruffed Grouse in the east, 

 But some parts of Canada are as 'Carolinian' as Pennsylvania, 

 or nearly so, and others are pure 'Boreal'' and the above state- 

 ment does not take this into consideration. It is a matter for 

 careful study with a big series of specimens. All I can say 

 is that with my present knowledge of the subject I can see 

 no difference between your bird and our Maine and Canadian 

 togata except in its having a little more red-brown in its 

 plumage." My father was a famous "Pheasant" shot, and 

 killed a great many birds in a period extending over half a 



