RUFFED GROUSE—PARTRIDGE 165 
From various points throughout the country, both in- 
land and along the coast, I received the same reports— 
no grouse.” 
Though constantly pursued by man during the open 
season and exposed to the attacks of a multitude of 
natural enemies, the ruffed grouse in many of our 
covers seems still almost to hold its own. There are 
seasons of abundance, when the birds are more numer- 
ous than usual, and others of scarcity, when sportsmen 
fear that they are about to disappear forever from par- 
ticular localities; but they continue to exist, and will 
long exist over much of the wooded country of the 
Eastern United States. The cutting off of the forests 
constitutes the gravest danger to which they are ex- 
posed. Where this is done the birds disappear, but, 
even after the heavy timber has been cut off, a period of 
ten or twelve years often results in the reforestation of 
the tract, at first only with underbrush and saplings, 
but later with larger trees. Then the ruffed grouse tend 
to come back again. 
For the ruffed grouse is a dweller in thickets. It 
seldom frequents the open land, except that it may 
venture out a little way from the edge of swamp or 
forest to pick up the grain in a cultivated field, or to 
eat the blackberries, huckleberries or wild grapes which 
ripen in some opening at the edge of the woods. For 
the most part, however, it is found in cover, sometimes 
quite open, among tall tree trunks of great size, or 
again in the most tangled swamp, among thickets of 
alder, blackberry, catbrier and grape vines. Wherever 
