GROUSE 



/^CONSIDERABLE misapprehension exists in relation 

 V_^ to the popular appellation of this species. In some 

 parts of the country it is dubbed the Partridge, while in 

 others it goes by the name of Pheasant. It is neither. All 

 its affinities point away from these families, in the direction 

 of the True Grouse, of which it constitutes a useful and 

 interesting member. Pheasants are never found in the 

 United States, but are indigenous to Southern Asia. Their 

 nearest representative here is the Wild Turkey. Almost as 

 much may be said of the Partridge, a group of birds which 

 are exclusive denizens of the Old World. 



But now to our subject. Few Grouse are so well known 

 as the Ruffed Grouse, the Bonasa itmbellits of Stephens. 

 Everywhere throughout the timbered regions of Eastern 

 North America it is more or less plentiful, ranging from the 

 Atlantic seaboard to the Rocky Mountains, and from 

 Georgia to Nova Scotia. In all our Southern States, Louis- 

 iana excepted, these birds exist to some extent, and are also 

 to be found over limited portions of the Missouri region, 

 but, doubtless, more especially about the mouth of the river, 

 and in the contiguous country. In the western parts of the 

 region it is represented by a form which passes with orni- 

 thologists as a well-defined, genuine vaiiety. It seems to be 

 wanting in California, but in the wooded sections of the 

 Cascade Range, as well as in the valley of the Willamette in 

 Oregon, where it exists under a new varietal name, it is by 

 no means an uncommon occupant. In the New England, 

 Middle Atlantic and Northern Central States it is that these 



