ii8 The Grouse Family 



During winter the principal food is the buds of 

 birch and other trees. Not infrequently it resorts 

 to the leaves of the alder, which impart to the 

 flesh a pronounced bitter taste. Birds so fed and 

 left long undrawn are apt to prove poisonous to 

 persons eating freely of them. The young feed 

 upon insects and various tender growths. 



When a brood is half grown it changes its 

 roosting habit and takes to the trees, those of 

 medium size and overgrown with grape-vines 

 being most favored. About this time, too, the 

 young acquire the treeing habit, and ever after, 

 when flushed by a dog, they are apt to tree. The 

 writer had a peculiar experience with a brood 

 about the size of quail. He was fishing, and had 

 for a comrade a young pointer dog, all liver color. 

 This pup, as pups will, found fishing not suffi- 

 ciently strenuous to hold his attention for long, 

 so to help pass time he started a lone-hand raid 

 of an adjacent thicket. A sudden tremendous 

 uproar attracted my attention, and, to my aston- 

 ishment, I saw an old hen grouse vigorously be- 

 laboring the bewildered pup with her wings and 

 giving him a piece of her mind in a torrent of 

 cacklings, such as I had never dreamed a grouse 

 capable of uttering. The poor pup, after first 

 trying to make a point, and then to grab her, 

 finally bolted in dismay. She followed him for 

 about a dozen yards, beating him about the rump 



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