RUFFED GROUSE 



By GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL 



Wbt /Rational ft00ociation ot fttrtiuiion feocteties 



EDUCATIONAL LEAFLET No. 63 



The Ruffed Grouse is found all over north temperate North America, in 

 situations adapted to its habits. Except by sportsmen and real woods-lovers, 

 it is seldom seen, for its life is spent chiefly in thick woods or in the depths of 

 swamps, or along steep, forest-clad hillsides. In thickly settled districts, where 

 much pursued, it is very wary, walking noiselessly away out of sight if it 

 hears an approaching step, or crouching and lying concealed if the intruder 

 comes suddenly upon it ; or when it believes itself discovered, rising from amid 

 a cloud of dry leaves with a roar of wings whose thunder often startles even 

 the seasoned woods-walker. 



It has different names in different sections; "pheasant" in the South and 

 parts of the West, and "partridge" in New York and New England. There 

 are different subspecies in the Northwest, Rocky Mountains, and Canada. 

 The Ruffed Grouse is a hardy dweller of the North, and fears neither 

 bitter cold nor deep snows. It loves the rough country. Flat grassy plains 

 have no charm for it, nor does it flourish where winters are mild 

 Haunts and spring breezes early and genial. Dark forests of pine and 



hemlock, rock-strewn mountainsides, and tangled, vinegrown, 

 alder swamps suit it best — dim, silent places where only the shy wild things 

 come. Heats or colds do not trouble it. If for weeks the ground is covered 

 deep with snow, the Grouse takes to the tops of the trees, feeding on the buds 

 of apple, poplar, birch, ironwood, and willow, and comfortably pulls through 

 seasons of scarcity until the ground is again bare, and it can resume its custom- 

 ary diet of berries, green leaves, fallen nuts, and the fruit of the skunk cabbage. 

 In the summer, the birds feed on the leaves of growing plants, on insects, 

 grasshoppers, and crickets; and in autumn they depend largely 

 Food on fruit — berries of all sorts, wild grapes, various nuts, and 



fallen apples, at which they like to peck. 

 One of the early spring signs that Ruffed Grouse are about is their drum- 

 ming. It is a low, hollow murmur like distant thunder, made by the bird, 

 while standing on a log, stone or stump, and rapidly beating 

 Drumming his wings. Few subjects have been more discussed by sports- 

 men — scientific and non-scientific — than this mysterious sound. 

 How is it made and why? The complete answer to the first question was given 

 only a few years ago, when Dr. C. F. Hodge photographed a Ruffed Grouse 

 in the act of drumming, and did this over and over again. It was then seen 

 that, instead of doing what tradition had declared — beating his wings against 

 a stone, a hollow log, or his breast — the Grouse, in fact, beats them only against 



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