It is to be remembered that aside from the nesting ordeal, the Ruffed 

 Grouse's greatest need of protection is in the autumn and winter, when many 

 of the trees are leafless. Deep wood interiors are more or less brown, even 

 in summer, and, above the ground, in winter likewise, so that a grouse's colors 

 are never really out of harmony with its environment; but it is in the two 

 brown, leafless seasons between green summer and white winter that the 

 average likeness between bird and landscape is the closest. During the 

 snowy winter months the Ruffed Grouse becomes more largely arboreal, 

 climbing about among the smaller branches of deciduous trees, with almost 

 the agility of a parrot or crossbill, picking buds — ^which are its principal food 

 at this season. Forest vistas above the ground, with the intricately striate 

 pattern of small, naked twigs, are therefore among its commonest winter 

 backgrounds, and a large element of its pattern fits these scenes to perfection. 



Another bird which wears a highly developed forest-vista pattern is the 

 American Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus). This owl sits nearly 

 erect in deep woods, and its obliterative shading is proportionately slight. 

 Horizontal-branch-barrings are the chief pattern of its underside, while its 

 back and particularly its wing-coverts bear a beautifully suggestive picturing 

 of variously extended vistas through the twigs and tree trunks. (See Fig. 36.) 

 The white breast-mark looks like a sky vista, or some other large, light-colored 

 detail of the woodland scene. It belongs among. contour-breaking 'ruptive' 

 markings (see Chapter XIII, pp. 77-78) and among those which 'let in' the 

 sky (chapter XXII, p. 149, etc.). 



The great European Eagle Owl {Bubo maximus) is almost the counter- 

 part of B. virginianus in coloration, but somewhat more boldly and sparsely 

 marked, in accordance with its less strictly sylvan life. 



The Great Gray or Lapp Owl (Scoptiaptex cinereum and 5. cinereum lap- 

 ponicum), an inhabitant of dense fir and spruce forests in the far north of both 

 continents, wears a congested but little diversified pattern strongly suggestive 

 of the dusky recesses of these northern woods. Most beautiful of all is the 

 forest-picturing on the little Screech Owl (Megascops asio) of North America. 



41 



