PECULIARITIES IN PAIRING. 93 



mencing immediately after dawn, and renewing the 

 noise about night-fall. The cock, when drum- 

 ming, usually stands upon a knoll or a felled tree, 

 in a retired or sheltered situation, and, proudly 

 erecting himself, raises his feathers, lowers his wings, 

 elevates his expanded tail, contracts his throat, 

 throws the two tufts of feathers on the neck into the 

 form of a ruff, and inflates his whole body, strutting 

 and wheeling about upon the leg with great stateli- 

 ness. A few moments elapse, in these preliminary 

 gesticulations, when he draws the whole feathers 

 close to his body, and stretching himself out, begins 

 to strike upon his sides with his stiffened wings in 

 short and rapid strokes, somewhat in the manner of 

 the domestic cock, but much more loudly, and with 

 so much rapidity of motion, after a few of the first 

 strokes, as to cause a rumbling sound not unlike dis- 

 tant thunder. This sound is very deceptive, ap- 

 pearing for the "most part to be much nearer than 

 it really is, though it is sufficient to point out the 

 place to the sportsman. 



" During the spring," says Audubon, " and to- 

 wards the latter part of autumn, at which times the 

 ruffed grouse is heard drumming from different parts 

 of the woods to which it resorts, I have shot many 

 a fine cock by imitating the sound of its own wings 

 striking against the body, which I did by beating a 

 large inflated bullock's bladder with a stick, keeping 

 up as much as possible the same time as that in 

 which the bird beats. At the sound produced by 

 the bladder and stick, the male grouse, inflamed with 

 jealousy, has flown directly towards me, when, being 

 prepared, I have easily shot it. An equally success- 

 ful stratagem is employed to decoy the males of our 

 little partridge by imitating the call-note of the female 

 during spring and summer ; but in no instance, after 

 repeated trials, have 1 been able to entice the pinnated 



