RUFFED-GROUSE SHOOTING. 117 



\ve sometimes shot in company. In going after 

 ruffed grouse in those days we used to take a 

 small spaniel dog, which would flush them out of 

 the brush, and cause them to take to the trees. 

 They are not easy to distinguish, as 1 said before, 

 when OH the tree, from their sitting upright close 

 to the trunk, their plumage being somewhat the 

 color of the bark. This habit must be remem- 

 bered by the sportsman when he believes the bird 

 is treed, but is unable to make him out. When 

 several have taken to the same tree, shoot the one 

 which sits lowest first, and the others will not 

 take wing. If the upper one is shot, its fall starts 

 the others off. More ruffed grouse are shot sit- 

 ting than flying. It is a very hard bird to shoot 

 on the wing hard to hit and hard to kill. Other 

 birds, when flushed in woodland, fly for the openings 

 in the trees ; the ruffed grouse, on the contrary, 

 plunges right into the densest part of the thicket. 

 The man who commonly kills the ruffed grouse he 

 shoots at on 'the wing is fit to hold his own at any 

 sort of shooting on the wing. The bird com- 

 monly rises in difficult ground with a whirr like 

 the sudden roar of a waterfall, and goes away 

 at electric pace for the thickest part of the brake. 

 The birds were scarce in Albany County, New 



