RUFFED GROUSE 



By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL 



THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES 

 Educational Leaflet No. 63 



The Ruffed Grouse is found all over north-temperate North America, 

 in situations adapted to its habits. Except by sportsmen and real woods- 

 lovers, it is seldom seen, for its life is spent chiefly in thick woods or in 

 the depths of swamps, or along steep, forest-clad hillsides. In thickly 

 settled districts, where much pursued, it is very wary, walking noiselessly 

 away out of sight if it hears an approaching step, or 

 crouching and lying concealed if the intruder comes Haunts 



suddenly upon it; or, when it believes itself discov- 

 ered, rising from amid a cloud of dry leaves with a roar of wings whose 

 thunder often startles even the seasoned woods-walker. 



It has different names in different sections: "pheasant" in the South 

 and in parts of the West, and "partridge" in New York and New England. 



The Ruffed Grouse is a hardy dweller of the North, and fears neither 

 bitter cold nor deep snows. It loves the rough country. Flat grassy 

 plains have no charm for it, nor does it flourish where winters are mild 

 and spring breezes early and genial. Dark forests of pine and hemlock, 

 rock-strewn mountain-sides, and tangled, vinegrown alder swamps suit 

 it best dim, silent places where only the shy wild things come. Neither 

 heat nor cold trouble it. If for weeks the ground is covered deep witli 

 snow, the grouse takes to the tops of the trees, feed- 

 ing on the buds of apple, poplar, birch, ironwood, and Food 

 willow, and comfortably pulls through seasons of 

 scarcity until the ground is again bare, and it can resume its customary 

 diet of berries, green leaves, fallen nuts, and the fruit of the skunk- 

 cabbage. 



In the summer, the birds feed on the leaves of growing plants, on 

 insects, grasshoppers, and crickets; and in autumn they depend largely 

 on fruit berries of all sorts, wild grapes, various nuts, and fallen apples, 

 at which they like to peck. 



One of the early spring signs that Ruffed Grouse are about is their 

 drumming. It is a low, hollow murmur, like distant thunder, made by 

 the male bird, while standing on a log, stone or stump, and rapidly 

 beating his wings. Few subjects have been more dis- 

 cussed by sportsmen scientific and non-scientific Drumming 

 than this mysterious sound. How is it made and 

 why? The complete answer to the first question was given only a few 



