BUFFED GROUSE. 27 



tufts erect. He begins beating his wings slowly; then faster and 

 faster, till their rapid reverberation becomes a tattoo, rolling out a 

 challenge to rival cocks and a love call to the hens. 



Nesting takes place in the latter part of April, or more often early 

 in May. In a makeshift nest scratched in a hollow are laid ten or a 

 dozen or even more creamy white or buffy eggs, usually unspotted, 

 but sometimes with fine specks of brown. The young look like little 

 brown leghorn chicks. Only one brood is raised in a season. On 

 July 4, in New Jersey, the writer has seen young birds as large as 

 woodcock. The cock grouse assist neither in incubation nor in rear- 

 ing the young, but after the eggs are laid assemble in small companies 

 by themselves. The hen is amply able to care for her little family, 

 and Mr. Sandys tells how a mother forced to headlong and unvalorous 

 flight a young pointer that had designs on her brood." The notes 

 of the grouse during the breeding season are interesting. When the 

 brood is surprised the hen utters several clucking sounds, one of 

 which may be described as ' quit, quit, quit.' Mr. Sandys, in writing 

 of the call of the parent birds to scattered chicks, says : '' 



In about ten minutes there sounded a low musical chirruping, very like the 

 sound emitted by a red squirrel between the coughing, sputtering notes. 



Major Bendire, quoting Doctor Ralph, says that a disturbed mother 

 grouse utters a sound like the whine of a young puppy.'^ 



Of the habits and general attractiveness of the ruffed grouse Major 

 Bendire writes as follows : * 



The Ruffed Grouse is naturally tame and unsuspicious, and let it once realize 

 that it is protected, it becomes almost as much at home in the immediate vicinity 

 of man as a domestic fowl, and quickly learns to know its friends. At the fine 

 country residence of the Hon. Clinton L. Merriam, near Locust Grove, N. Y., 

 especially during the winter, it is not an unusual sight to see several of these 

 handsome birds unconcernedly walking about the shrubbery surrounding his 

 home, and even coming on the veranda of the house to feed. They, like many 

 other animals about the place, have learned that here at least they are among 

 friends, and plainlj- show their full confidence in them. Even during the mating 

 season a cock Grouse may frequently be seen in the act of drumming within 

 50 yards of some of the outbuildings. 



Bird Lore, for May-June, 1904, has an account of a wild hen 

 grouse which was so tame that it would come out of the woods at 

 call and allow itself to be picked up, thus displaying the most un- 

 bounded confidence in its human neighbors. To lovers of nature the 

 esthetic value of this beautiful bird is very great, and its value is 

 none the less, although it can not be measured in cash. 



o Upland Game Birds, pp. 118-119, 1902. 

 6 Ibid., p. 119, 1902. 

 cLife Hist. X. A. Birds [I], p. 02, 1892. 

 i Ibid., p. GO, 1892. 



