The Ruffed Grouse 127 



chosen, he had his desire. One of the grouse in 

 that collection, an unusually large and very brown 

 specimen, has large ruffs of a lightish chocolate 

 color instead of the usual black. 



Before leaving the question of partial migration, 

 a reference to some peculiar encounters with 

 grouse in town may not be out of place. Just 

 before the writer bade farewell to his " teens," he 

 and his chosen comrades played ball enthusiasti- 

 cally and fairly well. The best all-round player 

 was a small, wiry chap whose specialty was catch- 

 ing. Upon wet days the chimney swifts used to 

 skim low through the streets and one time this 

 chap made a fair catch of one. The shock killed 

 the swift, but that didn't matter. Shortly after 

 the writer also caught a swift and broke its neck 

 in so doing. That didn't matter either; but what 

 did matter was that two young prigs went strut- 

 ting about as the great and only bird-catchers, and 

 naturally as rivals. Some time after the writer 

 had occasion to interview his rival and he found 

 him sunning himself on the roof of a shed. As 

 the conversation opened, something whizzed above 

 the roof, the rival made a leap and a grab, and 

 landed on his head in a manure-pile. Clutched 

 in his fist was a big piece of skin and a lot of 

 feathers which clearly belonged to a ruffed 

 grouse — the poor bird buzzed on and in its fright 

 darted into a shed, where it was later found and 



