The Dusky Grouse 415 



wing that in the great silence of the forest seems 

 hke a sound from home. And equally dear as a 

 companion it seems on the top of the soaring ridge, 

 where the sweep of the storm has piled a thousand 

 shattered trunks in ruinous confusion, leaving the 

 sunlight to play uncheckered upon the scrubby 

 chinquapin. And often a dozen or more may 

 burst from where the service-berry still droops 

 darkly blue in summer's waning, with a racket 

 that makes you clutch the rifle as if it were that 

 bear for which you have so long been looking. 

 And there are few sights more attractive than 

 one rising into the few patches of sunshine found 

 in these dark woods, with its full form in bright 

 relief against the thicket of salmon berry, black- 

 berry, and blackcaps, with the large red huckle- 

 berry shining like fire against the dark background 

 of the timber. 



The best shooting on the dusky grouse is not 

 with the shotgun, but with the rifle. There is 

 rarely certainty enough in finding it to make it 

 a special object of pursuit. In places you may 

 travel all day without flushing one, and in the 

 Sierra Nevada I once spent a week in the wildest 

 portion without seeing one. But when you are out 

 with the rifle and not afraid of alarming larger 

 game, there is no finer mark than the head of this 

 grouse. One standing upright on some huge 

 limb a hundred feet away and in the dim light 



