RUFFED GROUSE PARTRIDGE 165 



From various points throughout the country, both in- 

 land and along the coast, I received the same reports 

 no grouse." 



Though constantly pursued by man during the open 

 season and exposed to the attacks of a multitude of 

 natural enemies, the ruffed grouse in many of our 

 covers seems still almost to hold its own. There are 

 seasons of abundance, when the birds are more numer- 

 ous than usual, and others of scarcity, when sportsmen 

 fear that they are about to disappear forever from par- 

 ticular localities; but they continue to exist, and will 

 long exist over much of the wooded country of the 

 Eastern United States. The cutting off of the forests 

 constitutes the gravest danger to which they are ex- 

 posed. Where this is done the birds disappear, but, 

 even after the heavy timber has been cut off, a period of 

 ten or twelve years often results in the reforestation of 

 the tract, at first only with underbrush and saplings, 

 but later with larger trees. Then the ruffed grouse tend 

 to come back again. 



For the ruffed grouse is a dweller in thickets. It 

 seldom frequents the open land, except that it may 

 venture out a little way from the edge of swamp or 

 forest to pick up the grain in a cultivated field, or to 

 eat the blackberries, huckleberries or wild grapes which 

 ripen in some opening at the edge of the woods. For 

 the most part, however, it is found in cover, sometimes 

 quite open, among tall tree trunks of great size, or 

 again in the most tangled swamp, among thickets of 

 alder, blackberry, catbrier and grape vines. Wherever 



