8 Gbe l^arMer 



was not the season for shooting. He said he was trying to get a King Bird, 

 that his sister was very sick with heart disease and that if she would eat the 

 uncooked heart of a King Bird it would cure her. Of course, being a lay- 

 man, I advanced no opinion on the efficacy of the remedy. 



RUFFED GROUSE. {Bonasa umbc/his.) 



Our most valued game bird is the Partridge or Ruffed Grouse. He 

 stays with us all the time, and when he comes hot from the broiling iron 

 he is truly " a dish to set before the King." He is a strong, swift flyer, and 

 taxes the nerves and skill of the sportsman to a high degree, and to bring 

 down a Partridge under full wing in the evergreens in November sends a 

 thrill of delight through one's veins. 



The Grouse is a gallinaceous bird, and the young leave the nest as soon 

 as hatched, running around with the mother like chickens. Upon the 

 approach of danger the young hide themselves under the leaves in an in- 

 credibly short time, and the mother flutters off with an apparently broken 

 wing, keeping just out of reach to lure you away from the hiding place of 

 her young. 



This rule is employed by many birds, but none, so far as I know, to as 

 large an extent as the Ruffed Grouse. 



Naturally a very timid bird, the Grouse will put up quite a bluff for a 

 fight in defense of her young, and on two occasions I knew a Grouse to 

 show fight without any young. One fall, when attending a fire in the woods, 

 a Grouse, maddened by the fire and smoke, followed me for nearly a hundred 

 yards with its feathers reversed, and acting like a hen with chickens chasing 

 a dog. On another occasion I brought down a Grouse with a broken wing, 

 and my setter trailed it until its progress was stopped by a fallen tree, and 

 when I got to my dog I found the Grouse marching in front of the dog try- 

 ing to scare him. 



Experience has satisfied me that a Grouse knows enough to try and get 

 a tree between himself and the huntsman and to keep it there until he is 

 out of range. 



Grouse are less numerous around my home than they were twenty years 

 ago and their habits have undergone a very decided change. Then he usu- 

 ally took to a tree when flushed, now he seldom trees and he takes much 

 longer flights. When hunting in Canada this fall I found that the Grouse 

 were very tame and simply ran away from me, or if pressed flew into trees 

 nearbv and waited for their heads to be taken off with rifle balls. 



I understand that in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and places where the 

 Grouse has been hunted for a longer time than here it seldom or never trees. 

 The increased wildness may be accounted for by the simple fact of their 

 being hunted, but this will hardly account for their change of habit about 

 treeing. I think this must be accounted for by natural selection or survival 



