THE RUFFED-GROUSE 95 



may decide to rely upon concealment and will pos- 

 sibly present a very fair shot. 



When the dog fails to find the bird on or near the 

 ground where he has been marked, look carefully in the 

 trees, going over them a branch at a time. The 

 grouse will sit so closely and so still that he may be 

 easily overlooked. The birds are partial to woodland 

 roads, and when the road is not much travelled it "will 

 pay to run the dogs over it and the adjoining thickets. 



The ruffed-grouse have never been domesticated and, 

 of course, cannot be handled in a preserve as the pheas- 

 ants are, but when they are not too much shot at and 

 when their natural enemies, furred and feathered, are 

 destroyed they will increase in number, and I see no 

 reason when food is supplied to them, why they should 

 not do very well in the game preserve. I recently saw 

 a number of these birds on a preserve on Long Island 

 where the woodlands, small in extent, are mere thickets 

 of scrub-oak and pine, and I was convinced there were 

 more birds there now than many years ago when the 

 grounds were open to every gunner who came to 

 shoot, and every boy who came to trap, and when the 

 markets were prepared to dispose of the birds at good 

 prices. The prohibition of the sale of these birds has 

 done much. Like the other birds they were rapidly 

 being exterminated. 



The ruffed-grouse are found in the Rocky Mountains 

 associated with the blue-grouse, and the Canada, or 

 spruce-grouse (the Western variety called Franklin 

 grouse). Where these three magnificent birds come to- 

 gether there should be another National Park. 



