BIRDS HUNTED FOR FOOD OR SPORT. 381 



after a year of plenty. Grouse were reported as more abundant 

 than usual at the close of the shooting season of 1906 through- 

 out most of their range in the east. Soon after the shooting 

 season of 1907 opened, complaints of a scarcity of birds began 

 to come in and soon it became evident that some unusual 

 calamitj^ had overtaken them. I had been much in the field 

 during the spring and summer of 1907, and had noted that 

 very few young birds were reared in the region with which I 

 was familiar. An investigation showed that a similar con- 

 dition was widespread. Sportsmen's journals began to pub- 

 lish communications showing that few Grouse were reared in 

 New England, New York, Long Island, New Jersey and Penn- 

 sylvania, in New Brunswick and other provinces, and as far 

 west even as ^Minnesota. 



Wliile investigating the cause of this dearth of Grouse I 

 went to Albany, where I met Mr. E. Seymour Woodruff of the 

 Forest, Fish and Game Commission of New York, and found 

 that he was engaged in a similar investigation. He kindly gave 

 me a copj^ of his conclusions, which he since has published. 

 In brief, his conclusions, supplemented by my own, are as 

 follows: During the winter of 1906-07 a great flight of Gos- 

 hawks appeared in the northern and eastern States. They 

 usually winter farther north, and may have been driven south 

 by an unusual scarcity of hares or Ptarmigan, on which they 

 feed in the fur countries. Finding (irouse plentiful here, they 

 lived largely upon them. Twenty-eight out of forty-eight of 

 these Hawks, dissected by Angell & Cash, the Providence, R. I., 

 taxidermists, were found to have the flesh of Ruffed Grouse 

 in their stomachs. Mr. C. A. Clark of Lynn, Mass., states 

 that he saw a pair of Goshawks near his place one of which 

 had a Grouse in its claws, and from the feathers and signs on 

 the snow he read the story of the destruction of thirteen Grouse 

 by Goshawks in his neighborhood. Many observers in other 

 States saw these Hawks and found them killing Grouse during 

 that season, from late October to ]\Iarch. These Hawks must 

 have destroyed a very large number of Grouse, all of which 

 were full-grown birds, most of which probably would have 

 bred the succeeding spring had they lived and found mates. 



