THE SCARCITY OF RUFFED GROUSE IN I907. 373 



3. The unusually cold, wet and late spring of 1907, chilling the eggs 

 and killing such of the young birds as were successfully hatched. 



4. The extreme dryness during July and August, 1907, killing prac- 

 tical! v all the voung and many of the old birds through their inability to 

 find water. 



5. An epidemic of disease. (Most of the data given to substantiate 

 this might apply equally well to the following theory.) 



6. An internal parasite. 



7. An external parasite (" ticks "). 



8. Shooting and snaring by pot-hunters during the closed season. 



9. The resumption of an innate migratory instinct causing the birds 

 to leave the section in which thev had been raised. 



Discission 



1. Many people put the blame on the intense cold and scarcity of food 

 in the latter part of the winter of 1907, but only two' reports that might 

 support this theory have been seen. 



In Saratoga county, N. Y., a game protector reports that " old birds 

 were found frozen in the early spring." 



Mr. H. S. Kimball, Boston, Mass., in a letter to Forest and Stream, 

 November 23, 1907, writes: " Last February a man brought in a grouse 

 he had found in the highway starved and frozen. Two other similar inci- 

 dents occurred, and the result of a canvass made in three towns revealed 

 five different men who had picked up dead birds during that month." 



But these were only exceptional cases, and do not prove anything. 

 The grouse is too hardy a bird, and can and has withstood far more severe 

 winters than that of 1906-7, without any appreciable loss in numbers. 

 Besides this the grouse is just as scarce in those portions of its range where 

 the winter was not so extremely cold. 



2. The responsibility for the destruction of the grouse is laid by many 

 n unusual abundance of foxes, goshawks and other bird and mammal 



enemies during the winter of 1906-7, and the following data are given to 

 support this theory. 



Reports from game protectors and sportsmen in Chemung, Essex, 



