THE RUFFED GROUSE. 293 
day of September, the young birds by that time, and in 
truth much earlier, being quite fit for the gun, and to 
cease on the fifteenth of December, or at Christmas at 
the latest, before the snows of winter admit of their 
being snared and trapped by thousands. 
Toward the middle of October, the old hens drive off 
the broods, or the young birds now perfectly mature, 
stray from them of their own accord; and thenceforth 
.«y are found sometimes in little companies of two, 
three, or four, but far more often singly, in wild, difficult 
upland woods, through which they love to ramble 
deviously for miles, as they are led in search of their 
favorite food, or sometimes, as it would seem, by mere 
whim. On one occasion, many years since, when I was 
but a young sportsman on this side of the Atlantic, I 
remember footing a small party of five birds, in a light 
snow, for above ten miles among the Wawayanda moun- 
tains, in Orange County, New York, without getting up 
to them; although it was easily seen by their hurried 
and agitated tracks that for a great part of the distance 
they were within hearing of me, and were running from 
my pursuit. Ihad no dogs with me. Had I been out 
with setters, the Grouse would have trailed them for 
miles, and unquestionably risen at last out of shot. 
With spaniels, or curs, trained to run in upon them, and 
pursue, yelping loudly, as the mode is in the backwoods, 
where men do not shoot but gun, they would have taken 
to the trees, and would have sat close to the trunk with 
