154 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 
Its home is not a desert, however, but a sylvan re- 
treat, where flowers bloom and exhale sweet fragrance, 
and song birds warble the whole day long, though it 
may also resound with the whistle of the timid deer, the 
growl of the bear, or the high, sharp scream of the wild- 
cat and cougar. 
Where food is plentiful all the year round, an adult 
male weighs from one and a half to nearly two pounds. 
During the berry season its flesh is white, succulent, and 
of a delicate flavor, but to preserve this flavor when 
cooked it ought to be roasted whole, not split and 
broiled, as it usually is in hotels and restaurants. Few 
birds on the continent are more interesting to the natur- 
alist or lover of field sports than the ruffed grouse when 
it thunders forth its erotic lay early in the spring, amid 
the forest depths. It looks, when standing on a bough, 
like a knot of the tree, on account of the harmonious 
blending of its rufous or ashy plumage with the hue of 
the surrounding foliage. During the mating season the 
male presents a stately appearance, especially when he is 
parading up and down a log or serenading the fair sex. 
His ruff is then rigidly erected, the tail is spread into 
the form of a fan, and the wings, which are stiffened to 
the utmost limit, are drooped to the ground. His mien 
is proud and energetic, yet graceful, and his bearing is 
that of a gallant which is conscious of his own import- 
ance. After strutting up and down the log with all the 
pomposity of his family, and clucking his satisfaction at 
his own imposing form, he stops suddenly; then, after a 
brief pause, commences flapping his wings so vigorously 
that they produce a booming sound, which reverberates 
throughout the forest for a distance of half a mile or 
more, according to the state of the weather, and the 
echoing character of the surrounding region. 
After drumming for several minutes, he stops abrupt- 
ly, then renews it, with apparently greater force, and 
