160 NOTES ON THE 
BONASA UMBELLUS (L.). (300.) 
RUFFED GROUSE. 
Nowhere was the Ruffed Grouse more abundant than in all 
the deciduous forests of this State, until mercilessly slaught- 
ered by the pot-hunters. Almost any cluster of trees, particu- 
larly if well interspersed with brush, to say nothing of the 
extended forests of hardwoods stretching north and south and 
east and west over the middle and southern portions of Minne- 
sota, formerly contained its covey of ‘‘pheasants,” as these 
birds are popularly called. But their ‘‘glorious day is passing 
away” as fast as about 3800 dogs and 700 double-barrelled 
breech-loading shotguns can accomplish their annihilation. 
Improved game laws, which restrict the limits of the time in 
which their destruction may be continued, may prolong their 
represantation among the bird-fauna of the State somewhat, 
but how much, time alone can demonstrate. 
Not long after the first of May, the female seeks a retired 
spot on slightly elevated ground or on a gentle declivity, and 
under a more or less weathered log or in a bunch of thick 
brush, she scrapes out a slight hollow in the ground, into 
which she gathers a plentiful supply of leaves, which by 
treading while turning round and round she shapes into a 
loose nest, in which she drops about fourteen eggs. . 
Whenever she leaves her nest she carefully brings a good 
supply of dry leaves and drops them over it in such perfect 
imitation of the work of the wind that there is not the slight- 
est indication of a nest left. For many years these birds 
bred on the rear end of my ‘‘Cosy Nook Cottage” lot, on the 
east shore of Lake Minnetonka, where I had an exceptionally 
good opportunity to study their habits in the period of incuba- 
tion. I am satisfied that the male has no part in domestic 
duties during this time but spends his time to a considerable 
extent in the society of the other coxcomb-shirks of his sex 
—for at those times I have never seen one of them in the same 
section. While yet laying, if the female hears footsteps ap- 
proaching her, she steps off the nest and turns and places 
leaves over the whole, one at a time, so rapidly that before 
the spot has been reached all is perfectly concealed and she 
has a chance to get from ten to twenty yards away where she 
watches the intruder until he has clearly passed the nest, when 
