156 Game Survey of the North Central States 



cates that the 1924 high was skipped, although it may have been merely retarded 

 and not yet visible in 1922. 



Kean told me that the birds near Stanley, Chippewa County, fell off in 1918 

 and did not fully recover during the high period 192325. 



Schueler reports that the last high near Tomah, Monroe County, was in 

 1909; that the birds have never been abundant since then. Evidently two highs 

 were skipped here. 



All but two (Door and Oconto Counties) of these reports of skipped cycles 

 pertain to localities in process of recent agricultural development, which of course 

 includes the grazing of woodlots. It may be that the phenomenon of skipped 

 cycles is characteristic of range in process of being broken up into small parcels. 



Ozark Irruptions. Map 13 shows five counties in Missouri where 

 ruffed grouse have been at times common or even abundant. I could find no 

 evidence, however, that these periods of local abundance held good throughout 

 the State. Two counties showed simultaneous abundance in 1915, but other- 

 wise the dates are all different and apparently all local. Further evidence that 

 the species was in recent times never simultaneously abundant throughout the 

 State is the fact that many otherwise well posted sportsmen did not know of its 

 existence in the State. 



The present Missouri behavior must therefore be designated as locally irrup- 

 tive, rather than cyclic. 



It is of interest to note in passing that the southern Appalachians, which con- 

 tain the only other large body of habitable territory lying on the southern edge 

 of the ruffed grouse range, are known to exhibit violent fluctuations in this species. 

 Whether these are local and irregular, or general and periodic, is not yet known. 



Ruffed Grouse and Grazing. The distribution and abundance of ruffed 

 grouse in southern Wisconsin is in inverse ratio to the development of the dairy 

 industry, and the woodlot grazing which accompanies it. Where the woodlots are 

 small, few, and grazed, there are no grouse. Where the woodlots are large, fre- 

 quent, and ungrazed, grouse occur. (Compare the Wisconsin grouse distribution 

 on Chart 9 with the line of heavy woodlot grazing on Map 8). 



On the other hand there is every reason to believe that the spotty grazing 

 which occurs around the scattered farms in the Forest Belt is actually beneficial. 

 Here grazing plants clover on the old tote-roads, provides dry open spots for use 

 during rains, and in general increases the total mileage of boundary between wood- 

 land and open land which, as every grouse-hunter knows, is the yardstick of 

 quality jn grouse range, provided only that the soil be good. 



But when this northwoods grazing becomes too universal, the grouse dis- 

 appear. The numerous sheep farms now developing in the transition type of 

 Minnesota are pushing the grouse boundary back into the timber over wide areas. 



These contradictions in the effect of grazing are merely the repetition of the 

 ancient paradox that "virtue, grown into a pleurisy, dies of its own too-much." 



