The Ruffed Croitse 359 



of the wings in the case which he assumes. When, however, he 

 refers to the "forward stroke against the air" (the italics are 

 mine) as producing the sound, he falls into a common error. This 

 point in the drumming 1 was lucky enough to clear up for the first 

 time, — at least to my own satisfaction and as regards my own 

 observations. Satisfied by previous observations that the drumming 

 was mainly accounted for by the wings beating the air, I yet failed 

 to understand how it was that the force of the wing-beats did not 

 raise the bird from the log, since I had observed that he did not 

 and could not grasp so broad a perch with any appreciable clinging 

 power. Two of my blinds in IQ21 were so favorably situated that 

 this little mystery was very readily solved. 



The Drumming Place. The rostrum and stage setting for so 

 interesting a performance as this deserves at least brief mention. 

 The drummings I have heard or witnessed have been in woods as 

 varied as the usual general haunts of this grouse. Some have been 

 in dry hillside growths of beech and maple, some in cedar thickets; 

 many have been in mixed woods, often of a very swampy character. 

 In other words, it appears that the Ruffed Grouse drums wherever 

 he happens to live. The more exact spot selected may be deep in 

 the wood or, again, may be near its edge; the sort of log preferred 

 seems to be the greater and deciding consideration. I have known 

 grouse to drum directly on the ground, on some bare spot screened 

 by hemlock or other evergreens. Other observers have reported 

 the birds drumming on rail fences and stone walls. Yet the usual 

 drumming place is a log; and the usual log, an old mossy trunk that 

 lies flat on the ground or even half-buried on the forest floor (figures 

 95, 120). Often it is falling to pieces from decay, with only 

 here and there a spot sufficiently sound to afford the drummer a 

 foothold ; seldom is it a trunk recently felled, whether by wind 

 or otherwise. Only in one instance have I seen a Ruffed Grouse 

 use a drumming log which was sound on the outside and quite hollow 

 within. The sound from this log, by the way, was the same dull 

 characteristic " thumm "-ing. Yet, on one popular but mistaken the- 

 ory (that the bird beats the log with his wings), this log should have 

 proven a particularly resonant instrument. 



How the Ruffed Grouse Drums. I have watched at the distance 

 of a dozen feet the beginning, progress and ending of at least a 

 hundred drummings. Each instance was a demonstration of at 

 least one fact — that the forceful, sound-producing blow is the 

 outward and upward (not the downward and inward) motion of the 

 wings (figure 96) ! During about half of a given performance 

 the wing-beats are separated by quite appreciable intervals, and for 

 at least so much of the drumming the foregoing explanation par- 

 ticularly holds ; then the strokes come so close together that the 

 sound of each merges with the next to produce the whirring of the 

 " muffled drum " (figure 97). No doubt this latter part of the drum- 

 ming is caused about equally by the upward and the downward 

 movements of the wings, the drummer's equilibrium being main- 



