164 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
of the grouse, not directly, perhaps, but because by 
constant attacks the breeding stock is kept down so low 
that when conditions arise even slightly unfavorable to 
the species, and a few birds are swept away, the breed- 
ing stock is so reduced that not enough birds are reared 
the next season to replenish the covers. 
The widest differences of opinion about this matter 
exist between sportsmen and naturalists of experience. 
So good a field naturalist as Nap. A. Comeau, in his 
recent book, entitled “Life and Sport on the North 
Shore,” says of the ruffed grouse: 
“In some years they are abundant for a time and 
then disappear. I have noticed that heavy sleet in 
winter will sometimes drive them away from certain 
tracts of country. Since 1905 they have been pretty 
scarce all over the country (the north shore of the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence). I think this must be due to some 
kind of contagious disease, something similar, proba- 
bly, to the ‘grouse disease’ of Scotland. There is no 
other way of explaining their scarcity over such an 
immense extent of territory. Where the country has 
opened up, and there are only patches of wood here and 
there, it would be reasonable to suppose that they might 
have been exterminated by over-shooting and snaring; 
but where there are thousands of miles of forests, and 
not one in a hundred shot over, it cannot be put down 
to excessive shooting. As to natural enemies, they do 
not seem to have been any more numerous here than 
elsewhere. Last year (1908) I was over six weeks in 
the woods with two of my boys, and we only saw six. 
