THE RUFFED GROUSE 49 
prize beauty is ‘‘somewhere on a point, (that is, 
if he hasn’t run away clear out of the county.’’) 
The parenthesis, of course, under his breath 
along with some other comments which do not 
sound as well. Now Mr. Grouse does not be- 
lieve in such tactics: as a result he will be plan- 
ning his annual increase to the game supply 
long after the moths have finished that dining 
room ornament which was ‘‘The last woodcock 
killed in this section, Sir! And it’s too bad 
they were all killed off, isn’t it?’’ 
The Ruffed Grouse is a great rover. When 
the young become strong and able to fly well 
the flocks roam through the woods from one 
feeding ground to another—here to-day, to- 
morrow gone. In the fall they haunt the hard 
wood growths along the lake shores, and the 
rocky, oak-grown margins of the sea, moving 
from place to place as they tire of the spot or 
food begins to fail, crossing to near-by islands, 
for however much they may dislike to fly 
across bodies of water in the ‘‘Big Woods,’’ 
they do not hesitate to make long flights over 
the small arms of the sea, and in more culti- 
vated districts, flying on occasion a mile at a 
stretch. As the season advances they come 
