UPLAND GAME BIRDS: THE GROUSE 



Family Tetraonidae 



BY A. A. ALLEN, PH.D. 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ORNITHOLOGY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



THERE are many ways in which birds serve man, 

 but none has been recognized for so long as that of 

 food and sport. Ever since man descended from 

 the trees and began throwing stones, the flesh of birds 

 has formed an important item in his food supply. With 

 the coming of agriculture and the domestication of ani- 

 mals, birds became even 

 more useful and today mil- 

 lions of dollars are spent 

 each year in raising do- 

 mesticated birds so that 

 man can vary his diet of 

 beef and pork and mutton. 

 The strangest part of it is 

 that so few birds have 

 entered into the economy 

 of man. All of our domes- 

 tic ducks, with the excep- 

 tion of the muscovy, have 

 come from the mallard ; 

 all of our breeds of pigeons 

 from the rock dove; all of 

 our turkeys from the 

 Mexican turkey and all of 

 our breeds of chickens 

 from the red jungle fowl 

 of India. Other closely 

 related species, to our eyes 

 apparently the same birds, 

 have given us nothing. It 

 is one of the ways of 

 Nature to select one species 

 for glorification. Why 

 should the species homo 

 have risen so far above all 

 the species of apes, and the 

 red jungle fowl so far 

 above the gray or the 

 green ? 



Mother Nature is a great 

 specializer. Every organ- 

 ism develops, and becomes 



specialized or adapted for some particular function. 

 Some organisms are constructionists and others are 

 destructionists, and always the two are balanced. The 

 plants are the builders and the animals are the destroy- 

 ers. And lest some of the destroyers become too numer- 

 ous, other animals are the destroyers of them. In the 

 course of ages, this is the only way in which life can 

 exist. Otherwise there would be no progress and each 



Photograph by H. L. Sharp 



AS THE GROUSE LEFT IT 



Had not one of the eggs been left exposed the photographers would never 

 have found the nest. There are twelve other eggs in a depression beneath 

 the leaves at the foot of the tree. 



organism by its own growth and multiplication would 

 starve itself and all others into non-existence. 



In this scheme of Nature, there is one group of birds 

 which seems to be designed to be the legitimate prey of 

 the larger carnivorous birds and animals including man. 

 This is the group of game birds. Their habits are such 



as to develop the greatest 

 bulk of meat for their size 

 and their food is such as 

 to give to it a tenderness 

 and flavor highly desired. 

 Their food habits are not 

 such as to make them 

 needed in fighting the in- 

 sects, their colors are usu- 

 ally dull and songs, they 

 have not. Indeed their 

 greatest charm is in their 

 wildness and the subcon- 

 scious knowledge that they 

 are prized as food. Some 

 of these game birds fre- 

 quent the lakes and 

 marshes, others the up- 

 land woods and fields. The 

 latter include all of the 

 fowl-like or gallinaceous 

 birds of which this paper 

 will treat of the grouse. 



Some authorities place 

 all of the gallinaceous 

 birds, the turkeys, grouse, 

 partridges, quail, guinea 

 fowls, pheasants and pea- 

 fowls, in one family, the 

 Phasianidae, but here in 

 America, we are accus- 

 tomed to put each group 

 in a family by itself. Thus 

 we have the Tetraonide or 

 grouse, the Odontophori- 

 dae or New World par- 

 tridges and bob-whites, the meleagridae or turkeys, etc. 

 There is likewise considerable confusion in the usage 

 of the common names grouse, partridge and quail. These 

 names are applied to quite different birds in different 

 parts of the country and are used interchangeably in 

 others. It would be difficult to convince most hunters 

 that the bob-white is not a quail and that the ruffed 

 grouse is not a partridge, but strictly speaking, the true 



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