76 GAME BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
a desperate conflict ensues, wherein, perchance, some 
blood and many feathers are scattered upon the ground. 
Some believe that the Ruffed Grouse is not polygamous, 
but I think all the evidence we have seems to prove that 
it is, and that the male has many wives if he can get 
them. He pays no attention to the brood and is never 
seen with them, nor with the hen during the period of 
incubation, and I believe she hides her nest from him 
as well as from all her other enemies. 
This bird inhabits dense thickets, swamps, clumps of 
bushes, and similar situations affording concealment, and 
prefers a hilly country or one strictly mountainous cov- 
ered with timber, and is rarely seen in the open unless in 
the vicinity of some leafy covert. It frequents the banks 
of streams when overspread by bushes growing thickly 
together, but also is found at times in rather open woods 
with little or no undergrowth. When flushed this Grouse 
rises with a tremendous whir, which can be heard for a 
long distance and sounds not unlike a subdued roll of 
thunder, and an inexperienced sportsman is apt to be 
greatly flustrated by it and pretty sure to miss the bird, 
no matter how fair a mark it presents. The flight is 
extremely swift and powerful, and can be maintained 
for a long way, and the bird exhibits wonderful dexterity 
in threading the tangled brakes and by the unnumbered 
trees and branches without touching any in his headlong 
course. No little cunning is displayed also, that shows 
the bird is wide-awake and anxious to provide for its 
own safety, for as soon as it is on the wing it places some 
tree or bush between it and its pursuer and keeps on, 
as it flies, multiplying the obstacles for a successful shot. 
It lies well to the dog, but when it flushes always darts 
away from the side opposite to the sportsman, no matter 
how advantageously he may think he has chosen his 
