190 A Bit of Grouse Hunter's Lore. 



tergreens, the grateful odor pervading the 

 whole house when such birds are so 

 unfortunate as to get upon the hot 

 kitchen stove just before dinner time. 



Ruffed grouse are as neat in their 

 habits as such proud and self-respecting 

 birds ought to be, and they are very fond 

 of dusting in the wallow holes which they 

 make in the dry dust of crumbling logs in 

 the woods. Wherever the grouse live 

 we are so certain to find their dusting 

 holes that the hunter wastes no time in 

 the woods in which the crumbling logs 

 have not been thus utilized by the elite. 

 During the day the birds spend most of 

 their time in the brushy edges of the 

 woods and in the brambly gullies that 

 extend out in the fields, and if there are 

 stumps near at hand in the open, the 

 grouse are fond of running out about them 

 and hiding there during the middle of the 

 day. We should naturally expect to find 

 the grouse on the sunniest hillsides when 

 the weather is very cold, but they seem to 

 be rather indifferent to the temperature of 

 their surroundings and the covey is almost 



