NORTH AMERICAN GROUSE 



By CHARLES E. WHITEHEAD. 



WHERE is the hill -side climber whose heart has not leaped 

 at the burst of the ruffed grouse ? 

 Autumn leaves are golden ; the woodland carpet is 

 sodden, and damp with dew and frost ; the dank odors of decay and 

 the aromatic balsam bring reveries to the mind; the patch of sunshine 

 through the opening glade warms the body ; a listless thought of 

 some by-gone face is fixing your eye; your hand lingers on the 

 polished trunk of the white-birch tree by which you are steadying 

 yourself to swing over the lichened bowlder that bars your way, 

 when whir, whir, whir— r, whir-r-r, whir-r-r-r from your very feet 

 bursts out the cock-bird. The bright leaves fly in spangles, the 

 sharp twigs crackle, and thft leafy boughs spatter to his beating 

 wings, as, swerving to the right and left, he dashes away through 

 bush and open glade, and over the ravine, and out of sight, leaving 

 the spectator with a flush on his brow and a prickle in his back, with 

 his mouth half open, looking the way he went. No lady's bird is he. 

 His retreat is the roughest hill-side, where rock and ravine make 

 walking difficult and noisy, or swamps, where fallen trees and moss 

 cover the ground knee-deep, and hemlock and spruce afford covert 

 and buds for food. Sometimes in pairs they are found wandering 

 away through the open woods in search of insects or beech-nuts; 

 and again they will travel along the edges of grain-fields that adjoin 

 swamp-land, to glean the wheat. When snows are deep, they visit 

 old orchards and pick the ungleaned apples; and if the winter is 

 severe they can live on spruce-buds or laurel-berries, — thus making 

 the taste of their winter flesh bitter or even poisonous. 



