434 RUFFED GROUSE. 
have recourse to the buds of alder, and the teruler buds of the laure.. 
I have frequently found their crops distended with a large handful of 
these latter alone; and it has been confidently asserted, that, after 
having fed for some time on tne laurel buds, their flesh becomes highly 
dangerous to eat of, partaking of the poisonous qualities of the plant. 
The same has been asserted of the flesh of the deer, when, in severe 
weather and deep snows, they subsist on the leaves and bark of the 
laurel. Though I have myself ate freely of the flesh of the Pheasant, 
after emptying it of large quantities of laurel buds, without experi- 
encing any bad consequences, yet, from the respectability of those, 
some of them eminent physicians, who have particularized cases in 
which it has proved deleterious, and even fatal, 1 am inclined to believe, _ 
that, in certain cases, where this kind of food has been long continued, 
and the birds allowed to remain undrawn for several days, until the 
contents of the crop and stomach have had time to diffuse themselves 
through the flesh, as is too often the case, it may be unwholesome, and 
even dangerous. Great numbers of these birds are brought to our 
markets, at all times, during fall and winter ; some of which are brought 
from a distance of more than a hundred miles, and have been probably 
dead a week or two, unpicked and undrawn, before they are purchased 
for the table. Regulations, prohibiting them from being brought to 
market, unless picked and drawn, would, very probably, be a sufficient 
security from all danger. At these inclement seasons, however, they 
are generally lean and dry; and, indeed, at all times their flesh is far 
inferior to that of the Pinnated Grouse. They are usually sold, in 
Philadelphia market, at from three quarters of a dollar to a dollar and 
a quarter a pair, and sometimes higher. 
The Pheasant, or Partridge, of New England, is eighteen inches 
long, and twenty-three inches in extent; bill, a horn color, paler be- 
low; eye, reddish hazel, immediately above which is a small spot of 
bare skin, of a scarlet color; crested; head and neck, variegated with. 
black, red brown, white, and pale brown; sides of the neck, furnished 
with a tuft of large black feathers, twenty-nine or thirty in number, 
which it occasionally raises ; this tuft covers a large space of the neck 
destitute of feathers; body above, a bright rust color, marked with oval 
spots of yellowish white, and sprinkled with black; wings, plain olive 
brown, exteriorly edged with white, spotted with olive; the tail is 
rounding, extends five inches beyond the tips of the wings, is of a 
bright reddish brown, beautifully marked with numerous, waving, trans- 
verse bars of black, is also crossed by a broad band of black, within 
half an inch of the tip, which is bluish white, thickly sprinkled and 
specked with black; body below, white, marked with large blotches of 
ale brown ; the legs are covered half way to the feet with hairy down 
of a brownish white color; legs and feet, pale ash; toes, pectinated 
long the sides; the two exterior ones joined at the base, as far as the 
irst joint, by a membrane ; vent, yellowish rust color. 
The female, and young birds, differ in having the ruff or tufts of 
feathers on the neck of a dark brown colcr ; as well as the bar of black 
on the tail inclining mach to the same tint. 
