IPLAND SHOOTING. 



61 



had caught an old Hen-Grouse in a trap, and being obliged to keep 

 her in a large cage, she struck and abused the rest of the poul- 

 try, he remarked that she never drank, and that she even avoided 

 that quarter of the cage where the cup containing the water was 

 placed. Happening one day to let some water fall on the cage, it 

 trickled down in drops along the bars, wdiich the bird no sooner 

 observed than she eagerly picked them off, drop by drop, with 

 a dexterity that showed she had been habituated to this mode 

 of quenching her thirst, and probably to this mode only, in those 

 dry and barren tracts, where, except the drops of dew and 

 drops of rain, water is very rarely to be met with. For the 

 space of a week he watched her closely, to discover whether 

 she stiil'refused to drink; but, though she was constantly fed 

 on Indian corn, the cup and water still remained untouched 

 and untasted. Yet, no sooner did he again sj)rinkle water on 

 the bars of the cage, than she eagerly and rapidly picked them 

 otf, as before. The last and probably the strongest inducement 

 to their preferring these places, is the small acorn of the shrub- 

 oak, the straw^berries, huckleberries and partridge-berries, with 

 which they abound, and wdiich constitute the principal part of 

 the food of these birds. These brushy thickets also afford them 

 excellent shelter, being almost impenetrable to dogs or birds of 

 prey. In all those places where they inhabit, they are, in the 

 strictest sense of the word, resident ; having their particular haunts 

 and places of rendezvous — as described in the preceding ac- 

 count—to which they are strongly attached. Yet they have 

 been known to abandon an entire tract of such country, when, 

 from whatever cause it might proceed, it became again covered 

 with forest. A few miles south of the town of York, in Penn- 

 sylvania, commences an extent of country fairly of the charac- 

 ter described, now chiefly covered wuth w^ood, but still retaining 

 the name of Barrens. In the recollection of an old man, born 

 in that part of the country, this tract abounded with Grouse. 

 The timber growing up, in progress of years, these birds totally 

 disappeared, and for a long period of time he had seen none of 

 them, until, migrating with his family to Kentucky, on entering 



