The Ruffed Grouse 379 



down it went round and round us trying to squeeze under us. It 

 also climbed to my daughter's head where, peeping with a new note 

 of content, it wriggled quickly under her bobbed hair. Its ability 

 to pick its way surely and rapidly over, under or through the 

 obstructions of brush, logs, tussocks and shoots and then to locate 

 us was truly marvelous. Observing that it already could and did 

 now and then pick up a fly on its own account, we felt assured that 

 it could make its own way in the world and left it to do so or else 

 find its brothers and sisters. 



On June 4 I had another meeting with a young grouse chick 

 which may have been a real sequel to the foregoing. With a boy 

 of fifteen I was crossing an open field some three hundred yards 

 from the spot where the grouse chick had been let go seven days 

 before. Here we very unexpectedly came upon a young grouse 

 about one week older than the other chick. This field adjoined the 

 same piece of woods. There was no sign of any other grouse, 

 young or old, about. Under these extremely exceptional circum- 

 stances it seemed unavoidable to infer that here was my little 

 acquaintance of the preceding week. Apparently he had wandered 

 to this place where, by the way, small grasshoppers seemed to be 

 abundant, through having no guiding parent to keep him in his 

 natural habitat. He was about as wild as a domestic chick of the 

 same age. He would struggle to escape, and did escape, from my 

 hand ; but. when I offered him flies and grasshoppers, although he 

 did not take them, he would sit very still as if some dim recollection 

 had come to him. I soon let him go, but I believe he would have 

 eaten from my hand within an hour or two. 



FAMILY LIFE IN SUMMER 



For the element of human interest summer is perhaps the season 

 which will best repay the field observer of the Ruffed Grouse. But 

 it is not now the bird of thundering wing, or beating the mysterious 

 drum, about which interest centers. The point of focus now is 

 the brood of charming young with their watchful, crafty, resource- 

 ful mother. 



Many, many times have I heard some hunter or backwoodsman 

 telling the old, old story of the chicks disappearing as if by magic 

 and then of the " cute little rascals " being found, each one on his 

 back, holding a leaf over him! Repeatedly have I tried to verify 

 the story by experience, but always in vain. The tale is a myth. 

 Again and again I have come across the anxious mother and have 

 always looked for the young. My method is to let the fluttering 

 bird lead me a short distance away, then make a sudden sprint at 

 her, forcing her to take wing to a considerably greater distance; 

 whereupon I at once hasten back with all speed to the place of our 

 first meeting, here to conceal myself as best I may. There follows 

 perhaps ten minutes of silence. Then comes a low, mewing note, 

 " pe-e-e-e-u-u-r-r-r." The note can be imitated by trying to pro- 

 nounce the word " pure " in a strained, tremulous way with the 



