Hunting at High Altitudes 



them and immediately came back to tell me, so that 

 1 could kill them. I thanked him, but put a some- 

 what different construction on his motives, as he 

 had several times declared that he "had never lost 

 any bears." 



The next morning, while we were skinning the 

 bears, a ruffed grouse began to drum, and this 

 suggested the question so often asked as to how 

 the sound was produced. 



After we had finished the work of skinning the 

 bears, a rain squall came up and we went for 

 shelter to some pine trees near some brush, when 

 presently the grouse sounded his drum on a dead 

 pine log about thirty yards distant and partially 

 screened by underbrush. Choosing as good a posi- 

 tion as possible for observing him, I watched him 

 carefully through the field glasses. He went 

 through the operation of drumming five or six 

 times, and there need be no mistake as to how the 

 sound is made. 53 After a few preliminaries, he 

 seemed to grow larger, as if he had inflated his 

 lungs, and then standing on tiptoe, like the rooster 

 when crowing, he struck his wings violently over 

 the breast, producing the sound which is often 

 heard half a mile. Each spell of drumming con- 

 sisted of six or eight blows, delivered slowly at 

 first and more rapidly toward the end. When the 



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