156 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
summer—and especially for the young birds—insects, 
notably grasshoppers and crickets, make up a portion 
of its diet. It is fond of berries of all sorts, and black- 
berry patches and wild grape vines are often visited 
by it when the fruit is ripe. Indeed, from midsum- 
mer until early winter there are always berries for them 
to feed on. In autumn also they feed on fallen apples, 
and wild apple trees in the midst of woods are a fa- 
vorite resort for them morning and evening. They eat 
some grass and the leaves of many plants. They feed 
on the fruit of the skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus) ; 
early in the winter tearing away the pithy covering that 
holds the seeds and picking them out from their spongy 
bed, or later gathering them from the ground. 
Most of all they like nuts, such as chestnuts, acorns 
and beechnuts. I have taken from the crops of grouse 
two or three pignuts, a double handful of chestnuts and 
as many beechnuts as I could hold in one hand. There 
is a record of a small snake having been taken from a 
grouse’s crop. 
The Biological Survey has shown that over Io per 
cent. of the food of the ruffed grouse is animal and 
89 per cent. vegetable matter. The vegetable food is 
seeds, more than 11 per cent.; fruit, more than 28 per 
cent. ; leaves and buds, more than 48 per cent. Most of 
the insects eaten are injurious; either those that prey 
upon the growing crop or borers destructive to the 
forest. Every ruffed grouse that is killed, if he had 
lived out his time would have destroyed a great mul- 
