female leaves the male and carries on the rest of the family duties by herself. The nest, 

 usually in \voods or brushland, is simply a little depression in the ground. It has a 

 scant lining of \vhate\er dead leaves are at hand. From nine to a dozen buffy eggs are 

 the usual clutch. After about three weeks of incubation the young hatch, and as soon 

 as they are dry. they follow the parent, leaving the empty eggshells in the nest. 



The "broken-wing" or "cripple-bird" ruse of the female grouse to draw an enemy 

 away from her young has puzzled many a predator and roused the admiration of 

 many a nature student. When an enemy approaches the little brood, the female may 

 rush at it. e\'ery feather on end until she appears twice her normal size. If this is 

 not successful in scaring away the marauder, she may start to flutter and limp 

 away, apparently a cripple to be had for the catching. But when she has thus 

 led the encmv far enough from her brood, she collects herself and whizzes away and 

 disappears. The young, meanwhile, have been crouching motionless in response to a 

 warning cluck from the mother, their pattern of buff and brown harmonizing so well 

 with the dead leaves of the forest floor that only a very careful search will find them. 



The grouse seems an opportunist in its feeding. The list of seeds it has been found 

 to eat occupies a column more than three inches long in Bent's Life Histories. It also 

 eats leaves, picking one here, one there, as it goes along; whatever insects come its way 

 seem to be picked up, and in winter, when everything else is snow-co\ered, the birds 

 perch in trees and eat the buds of birch and aspen. 



In the autumn the grouse is hunted as one of the finest of game birds. Often it is in 

 small parties, feeding in an old orchard, or in a buckwheat field near a wood, or in a 

 hedgerow. It springs into flight with a roar of wings and twists and bores through the 

 bush, often putting a dense tree between it.self and the gunner. 



Its range is rather northern, from New England to British Columljia, though it 

 ranges farther south in the mountains. Formerly, at least, it was listed as an uncommon 

 bird of the Chicago area. 



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