37 2 Roosevelt Wild Life Bulletin 



proud turkey cock but, on the contrary, marked by silence and 

 watchfulnes. Of the eight or ten Grouse I have watched for hours 

 at a time, daily, covering altogether the entire breeding season, only 

 one — as above noted — showed any sign of strutting and then 

 only on one or two occasions for a few brief minutes (figure 117). 

 However, I fancy the strutting is mostly done in the presence of 

 the female, or at least when her presence is suspected, — that it is 

 essentially a mating habit, and hence is most commonly practiced 

 very early in the spring ; earlier than most of my observations have 

 thus far been made. 



" May 14th. — Made several snaps of the grouse from blind No. 

 3. Here a Black and White Warbler visited me, coming within a 

 yard of my face; then he went round to the front of the blind and 

 viewed me through the peephole. I have seen both grouse run 

 suddenly off their logs after some bug or fly, then waik leisurely 

 back. Grouse No. 2 seems crop-bound or to have some such ail- 

 ment ; today he repeatedly acted so. I watched him from 7 130 till 

 noon when he left the log and I soon heard him clucking loudly and 

 continuously' — I think for a mate — some 60 feet to my left, in 

 which direction he had disappeared." 



"June 1st. — Flushed Grouse from beside log No. 1. No drum- 

 ming heard or other Grouse seen." 



"June 8th. — Flushed Grouse from beside log No. 1. W r atched 

 No. 2 drum a few times." 



A Tragedy of the Woods. This bird No. 2 continued to show 

 evidence of sickness, persisting in moping and dozing. After drum- 

 ming he would lapse almost immediately into a sleeping posture, 

 often half closing or even entirely closing his eyes drowsily. 

 Shortly before his next drumming he would come out of his stupor 

 (figure 118) ; the drumming seemed to be a duty that had to be 

 gone through with. I greatly feared some marauder would get him. 



By this time (June 8) the drumming had become irregular and 

 undependable. Stripping my blinds of the cloth curtains over 

 their peepholes and carefully measuring the respective distances 

 from blinds to drumming logs, I " called it a season." Yet one grim 

 note remained to be added. 



About the middle of June, finding myself again in the Grouse 

 woods, I visited the drumming logs once more. Nos. 1 and 2 had 

 been in recent use. No. 3 had apparently been unused for several 

 days, and the reason was not far to seek. A few small body 

 feathers, which strewed the spot, were no cause for alarm; such 

 feathers are not at all unusual in these places where the grouse do 

 a good deal of preening (figure 119). But here also was a tuft of 

 black feathers from the ruff ! I was suspicious. Almost at the 

 same time I discovered one of the flight feathers, then several 

 others, all on the ground within a few feet of the drumming spot. 

 Of course that settled it ; here were the verv drumsticks, wrenched 

 and thrown awav ! Bonasa, afflicted as T noticed he had been, 

 had dozed once too often or a moment too long and, in consequence, 



