RUFFED GROUSE—PARTRIDGE 163 
the following’ year very few may be found. After 
that it may take some years for the birds to re- 
cover themselves and again to become reasonably abun- 
dant. Whenever such a period of scarcity occurs, 
sportsmen very naturally endeavor to assign reasons 
for the reduced numbers of the birds. 
Among the causes suggested are these: that they 
have been swept away by an epidemic disease, that they 
have been destroyed by insect enemies, that they have 
been killed by hawks, owls and foxes, that the breeding 
season has been unfavorable, that the winter’s snow and 
cold have killed them, while many men believe that 
over-shooting furnishes the best reason of all. None of 
these explanations appear to fit all cases. The birds 
may succumb to disease, but there appears to be no evi- 
dence that they do so. The young chicks in traveling 
through the woods and swamps undoubtedly occasion- 
ally pick up wood ticks which suck their blood, and 
occasionally a young and weakly bird may perish from 
this cause. Those who attribute the scarcity of grouse 
at any time to hard winters—to their being covered up 
and frozen in under the snow—cannot know much 
about grouse nature. The bird is found far up in the 
north, where it is exposed to weather far more rigorous 
than it can ever experience in temperate climes, and if 
it had been so tender as to be killed by the winter, it 
would long ago have been exterminated in the moun- 
tains of Alaska, along the Mackenzie River and south- 
ern Ungava. It seems more probable that over-shoot- 
ing must have much to do with these disappearances 
