Bob Whites, Grouse, etc. 



owls do awful execution. Snares of silk and horsehair, poacher's 

 traps, and "twitch-ups" of young saplings bent by the farmer's 

 boy, do much to spoil the sport, that becomes shockingly rarer 

 year by year. To escape pursuit a grouse will often dive into 

 the snow; and although dense feathers cover its body and legs, 

 it will make a similar plunge to keep warm in extremely cold 

 weather, a solitary shiverer, unlike the Bob Whites, that bury 

 themselves in cosy, snug family parties; but, like them, it, too, 

 sometimes gets imprisoned by an impenetrable ice crust, and so 

 perishes miserably. 



The Canadian Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus togata), to be 

 distinguished from the preceding by the prevailing gray, instead 

 of chestnut, of its upper parts, its grayer tail, and its more dis- 

 tinctly barred under parts, almost as clear on the breast and 

 underneath as on the sides, is doubtless simply a climatic varia- 

 tion, only the systematists seeing a sufficient difference in the 

 two birds to justify their separation into two distinct species. 

 Their habits and eggs are identical. Often no difference can be 

 detected by sportsmen who bring home both species in their 

 game bags. The spruce forests of northern New York and New 

 England and the British provinces, westward to Northern Ore- 

 gon, Idaho, and Washington to British Columbia, north to James 

 Bay, is the Canadian ruffed grouse's range. 



The Gray Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus umbelloides), a 

 still paler variation, in which the gray tints predominate, ranges 

 from the Rocky Mountain region of the United States and British 

 America north to Alaska and east to Manitoba. Considering the 

 altitudes of from seven to ten thousand feet at which it usually 

 lives, the lonely cations it frequents, and its rare persecution at 

 the hands of men, it is surprisingly shy, according to Captain 

 Bendire. Otherwise it has no trait, apparently, not already 

 touched upon in the life history of the ruffed grouse. 



The Oregon, or Red Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus sabint), 

 the darkest, handsomest variation of the ruffed grouse anywhere 

 found, roams over the coast mountains of Northern California, 

 Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, reaching Alaska and 

 many of the Pacific Coast islands, and occasionally straying into 



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