THE RUFFED GROUSE. 153 



ferent seasons and places, ranging from rnfous to chest- 

 nut and gray. The ruff feathers are usually dark-brown 

 or black; the adjacent plumage of the neck is tipped with 

 white; the tail feathers are tipped with gray, and have a 

 broad terminal bar of black, anterior to which are nine 

 or ten undulated transverse bars which are gray before 

 and black behind. The female closely resembles the 

 male, but is smaller; the latter attains a length of eighteen 

 inches, and a weight of a pound and a half, while she 

 rarely exceeds fourteen Inches in length, and a weight of 

 one pound. The ruffed grouse is known indiscriminate- 

 ly throughout the United States as the partridge and 

 the pheasant, and in some portions of Canada as the 

 white-flesher, from the hue of its meat. Being exceed- 

 ingly wild and solitary in habit, it is not susceptible to 

 domestication, for it shows greater fear of man than of 

 the fox or hawk. 



Being found only in dense woods or tangled under- 

 growth, and on rugged ground seamed by ravines and 

 chasms, and often strewn with boulders, it is difficult of 

 pursuit, and being strong and swift on the wing, and 

 possessed of great vital power, it requires a quick eye 

 and hard hitting to bring many to bag. Few persons 

 can boast of bagging more than ten or fifteen brace a 

 day, even in the forests of the Northwest, where it is 

 most abundant, and those who shoot three or four brace 

 in the same time, in other portions of the country, con- 

 sider themselves fortunate. 



It is the emblem of a bird of the wilderness, and on 

 meeting it amidst the silent woodland depths one feels 

 like apostrophizing it in the language of the poet, Hogg: 



" Bird of the wilderness, 

 Blithesome and cumberless, 

 Gay be thy matin o'er moorland and lea ! 

 Emblem of happiness, 

 Blest be thy dwelling-place — 

 Oh, to abide in the desert with thee ! " 



