

RUFFED GROUSE PARTRIDGE 163 



the following year very few may be found. After 

 that it may take some years for the birds to re- 

 cover themselves and again to become reasonably abun- 

 dant. Whenever such a period of scarcity occurs, 

 sportsmen very naturally endeavor to assign reasons 

 for the reduced numbers of the birds. 



Among the causes suggested are these: that they 

 have been swept away by an epidemic disease, that they 

 have been destroyed by insect enemies, that they have 

 been killed by hawks, owls and foxes, that the breeding 

 season has been unfavorable, that the winter's snow and 

 cold have killed them, while many men believe that 

 over-shooting furnishes the best reason of all. None of 

 these explanations appear to fit all cases. The birds 

 may succumb to disease, but there appears to be no evi- 

 dence that they do so. The young chicks in traveling 

 through the woods and swamps undoubtedly occasion- 

 ally pick up wood ticks which suck their blood, and 

 occasionally a young and weakly bird may perish from 

 this cause. Those who attribute the scarcity of grouse 

 at any time to hard winters to their being covered up 

 and frozen in under the snow cannot know much 

 about grouse nature. The bird is found far up in the 

 north, where it is exposed to weather far more rigorous 

 than it can ever experience in temperate climes, and if 

 it had been so tender as to be killed by the winter, it 

 would long ago have been exterminated in the moun- 

 tains of Alaska, along the Mackenzie River and south- 

 ern Ungava. It seems more probable that over-shoot- 

 ing must have much to do with these disappearances 



