RUFFED GROUSE. 
ONSIDERABLE misapprchension exists in relation 
to the popular appellation of this species. In some 
parts of the country it is dubbed the Partridge, while in 
others it goes by the name of Pheasant. It is neither. All 
its affinities point away from these families, in the direction 
of the True Grouse, of which it constitutes a useful and 
interesting member. Pheasants are never found in the 
United States, but are indigenous to Southern Asia. Their 
nearest representative here is the Wild Turkey. Almost as 
much may be said of the Partridge, a group of birds which 
are exclusive denizens of the Old World. 
But now to our subject. Few Grouse are so well known 
as the Ruffed Grouse, the Bonasa umbellus of Stephens. 
Everywhere throughout the timbered regions of Eastern 
North America it is more or less plentiful, ranging from the 
Atlantic seaboard to the Rocky Mountains, and from 
Georgia to Nova Scotia. In all our Southern States, Louis- 
iana excepted, these birds exist to some extent, and are also 
to be found over limited portions of the Missouri region, 
but, doubtless, more especially about the mouth of the river, 
and in the contiguous country. In the western parts of the 
region it is represented by a form which passes with orni- 
thologists as a well-defined, genuine variety. It seems to be 
wanting in California, but in the wooded sections of the 
Cascade Range, as well as in the valley of the Willamette in 
Oregon, where it exists under a new varietal name, it is by 
no means an uncommon occupant. In the New England, 
Middle Atlantic and Northern Central States it is that these 
