438 SPOTTED OR CANADA GROUS. 



that about half an hour after our departure they had seen a fine covey. 

 We were too much fatigued to go in search of them, and therefore made 

 for home. 



Ever ardent, if not impatient, I immediately made arrangements for 

 procuring some of these birds, offering a good price for a few pairs of old 

 and young, and in a few days renewed my search in company with a man 

 who had assured me he could guide me to their breeding grounds, and which 

 he actually did, to my great pleasure. These breeding grounds I can- 

 not better describe than by telling you that the larch forests^ which are 

 there called " Hackraetack Woods,"" are as difficult to traverse as the 

 most tangled swamps of Labrador. The whole ground is covered by the 

 most beautiful carpeting of verdant moss, over which the light-footed 

 Grous walk with ease, but among which we sunk at every step or two up 

 to the waist, our legs stuck in the mire, and our bodies squeezed between 

 the dead trunks and branches of the trees, the minute leaves of which in- 

 sinuated themselves among my clothes, and nearly blinded me. We 

 saved our guns from injury, however, and seeing some of the Spruce Par- 

 tridges before they perceived us, we procured several specimens. They 

 were in beautiful plumage, but all male birds. It is in such places that 

 these birds usually reside, and it is very seldom that they are seen in 

 the open grounds, beyond the borders of their almost impenetrable re- 

 treats. On returning to my family, I found that another hunter had 

 ^brought two fine females, but had foolishly neglected to bring the young 

 ones, which he had caught and given to his children, who to my great 

 mortification had already cooked them when my messenger arrived at his 

 house. 



The Spruce Partridge or Canada Grous breeds in the States of Maine 

 and Massachusetts about the middle of May, nearly a month earlier than 

 at Labrador. The males pay their addresses to the females by strutting 

 before them on the ground or moss, in the manner of the Turkey Cock, 

 frequently rising several yards in the air in a spiral manner, when they 

 beat their wings violently against their body, thereby producing a drum- 

 ming noise, clearer than that of the Ruffed Grous, and which can be 

 heard at a considerable distance. The female places her nest beneath 

 the low horizontal branches of fir trees, taking care to conceal it well. 

 It consists of a bed of twigs, dry leaves and mosses, on which she deposits 

 from eight to fourteen eggs of a deep fawn colour, irregularly splashed 

 with different tints of brown. They raise only one brood in the season. 



