BIRDS OF NEW YORK 37 1 



the most acute distress when her chicks are in danger and flutters about or 

 limps along as if with broken wing until she has lured the intruder away 

 from her young, when she flies off into the forest and returns to her brood 

 by a circuitous route. On two or three occasions when the mother grouse 

 saw that her ruse was of no avail, I have acttially been attacked by her and 

 driven from the locality. She charges with ruffs and hackle feathers thrown 

 high up like a mane about her head, her tail and wings spread, to beat the 

 intruder with her powerful wing strokes. The young can fly when they are 

 as large as small robins and soon learn to alight in thick trees and remain 

 motionless while danger is near. The grouse utters a subdued chick, and 

 when startled makes a plaintive sound "resembling the whining of vovmg 

 puppies." 



Food. When }'oung they feed almost entirely on insects, being very 

 fond of grasshoppers, beetles, ants and various kinds of leaf eating larvae. 

 Late in stmimer they feed largely on berries of all kinds, the leaves of clover, 

 strawberr}- and the tender shoots of plants, cspecialh' beech drops and the 

 young leaves of wintergreen. In the fall ihey are fond of beech nuts, 

 chestnuts, small acoms and haw berries, or the fruit of the Crataegus: and 

 in winter subsist principally on the buds of birch, poplar, and apple trees, 

 often traveling a distance of 50 or 100 rods to visit isolated trees late in 

 the afternoon to feed on the buds. The grouse seems to be partial to 

 leaves with pungent flavor, like wintergreen, mint, sorrel, birch, and 

 various kinds of berries, which impart a peculiar gamey flavor to its flesh, 

 and, it is said, when it has fed for some time on the mountain laurel, becomes 

 bitter or even poisonous. 



Roosting. When the chicks are young they sleep on the ground 

 brooded Ijy the hen, but when they are able to fly they roost in trees at 

 a hight of from 8 to 20 feet, the more easily to avoid their numerous enemies. 

 During the coldest weather I have found grouse roosting both on the ground 

 and in dense pines or hemlocks, but in snowy and stomiy weather the}^ 

 usually sleep in the snow, at the foot of a tree or stump, but not among 

 the thick brush, and are frequently buried in the snow to a depth of several 

 inches, as mav be seen by examining the roosting holes which they have 



