XIII 



THE CANADA-GROUSE, SPRUCE-GROUSE, OR 

 BLACK-GROUSE 



THE Canada-grouse and the Rocky Mountain 

 species, known as the Franklin's grouse, are 

 the same from the sportsman's point of view. They 

 are the smallest of all the grouse excepting the ptar- 

 migan, and, like the latter, they are seldom taken by 

 sportsmen in the United States. 



The Canada-grouse is a bird of the Northern woods 

 and inhabits the spruce forests of Maine, the Northern 

 States, and the Canadian provinces, north to the 

 Arctic region as far as the woods extend. The 

 general color of the spruce-grouse is black. It is 

 effectively marked below with white, and is a very 

 handsome bird. It is often called the black-grouse on 

 account of its color, but this name is more often ap- 

 plied to a larger foreign bird. The female is lighter 

 and brown in color. 



The Canada-grouse is more often seen by sportsmen 

 who are in pursuit of big game, such as the moose, elk, 

 and deer. They are not much molested and are quite 

 tame, too tame to be interesting in most places. John 

 Burroughs, describing a trip into Canada, says : " We 

 came upon two or three broods of spruce-grouse in 

 the road, so tame that one could have knocked them 

 over with poles." The same writer found them 



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