34 GROUSE FAMILY. 



arrest them. They are even smoked to death in the same 

 manner as the Wild Pigeons in the Western country, while 

 sleeping harmlessly and unsuspectingly on their leafy roosts. 

 By this system of indiscriminate extirpation they are now 

 greatly thinned throughout the more populous parts of the 

 Union, and sell in Philadelphia and New York from seventy- 

 five cents to a dollar apiece. The common price of these 

 birds (decidedly, as I think with Audubon, superior in flavor 

 to the Pinnated Grouse) is in the market of Boston from 40 

 to 50 cents the pair, showing how much more abundant the 

 species is in the rocky regions of New England than in any 

 other part of America. Deleterious effects have sometimes 

 occurred from eating this game, supposed to arise from their 

 feeding on the buds of the broad-leaved Kalmia ; yet most 

 persons eat them with safety at all seasons of the year, even 

 when these kind of buds have been found almost filling the 

 stomach. 



The systematists have recently separated the Ruffed Grouse dis- 

 tributed over the Northern and Middle States from those found 

 along the northern border of New England and in Canada, making 

 the latter a sub-species and giving to it the name of Canadian 

 Ruffed Grouse {B. innbelbis toi-t^ata). 



The Canadian race is in general darker colored, and lacks a 

 reddish tinge on the back; also the markings of the under parts 

 are more conspicuous. 



" Birch Partridges," as they are commonly called by the gunners 

 of northern Maine and the Maritime Provinces, are still fairly 

 abundant, though the markets have been generously supplied with 

 them every year. 



