Mountain Game. 117 



They are marvellously tame and stupid. The young birds 

 are the only ones I have ever killed in this manner with a 

 stick ; but even a full plumaged old cock in September is 

 easily slain with a stone by any one who is at all a good 

 thrower. A man who has played much base-ball need 

 never use a gun when after spruce grouse. They are the 

 smallest of the grouse kind ; the cock is very handsome, 

 with red eyebrows and dark, glossy plumage. Moreover, 

 he is as brave as he is stupid and good-looking, and in the 

 love season becomes fairly crazy : at such time he will 

 occasionally make a feint of attacking a man, strutting, flut- 

 tering, and ruffling his feathers. The flesh of the spruce 

 grouse is not so good as that of his ruffed and blue 

 kinsfolk ; and in winter, when he feeds on spruce buds, it 

 is ill tasting. I have never been able to understand why 

 closely allied species, under apparently the same surround- 

 ings, should differ so radically in such important traits 

 as wariness and capacity to escape from foes. Yet the 

 spruce grouse in this respect shows the most marked con- 

 trast to the blue grouse and the ruffed grouse. Of course 

 all three kinds vary greatly in their behavior accordingly 

 as they do or do not live in localities where they have 

 been free from man's persecutions. The ruffed grouse, a 

 very wary game bird in all old-settled regions, is often 

 absurdly tame in the wilderness ; and under persecution, 

 even the spruce grouse gains some little wisdom ; but the 

 latter never becomes as wary as the former, and under no 

 circumstances is it possible to outwit the ruffed grouse by 

 such clumsy means as serve for his simple-minded brother. 

 There is a similar difference between the sage fowl and 



