374 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 



Herkimer, Oswego, Otsego and Schuyler counties, New York, state that 

 there was an unusual abundance of foxes, skunks, hawks and owls in these 

 localities during the winter of 1906-7, and give this as the cause or one 

 of the causes of the scarcity of the grouse. 



"J. N. C." of New Florence, Pa., writes in Forest and Stream, Novem- 

 ber 23, 1907: " The scarcity is not due to a disease, but to a bad season 

 for hatching, and, worst of all, foxes. To show how numerous this latter 

 pest is in this section, it is only necessary to say that one trapper in this 

 locality last month caught no less than eighty-six foxes, almost entirely 

 of the gray variety. The destruction that foxes wage among grouse is 

 almost beyond belief. Not only is the setting hen bird killed on the nest 

 and the eggs destroyed, but if she escapes and the hatch is brought out, 

 the chances are ten to one that the whole brood will disappear down the 

 never-satisfied maw of the foxes." 



Two other letters from Pennsylvania speak of the great increase in 

 foxes. 



Raymond S. Spears, Little Falls, N. Y., in Forest and Stream, Decem- 

 ber 7, 1907, gives an abundance of foxes and other predatory animals in 

 the Adirondacks as one of the chief causes of the scarcity of grouse. He 

 writes that foxes, weasels and owls caught by trappers last winter had 

 an unusual amount of fat on their bones; " a very good indication that 

 birds and small animals were having a hard winter." 



Frank Ashman, Cornwall Bridge, Conn., in Forest and Stream, Decem- 

 ber 7, 1907, writes: " Last winter I was in the woods nearly every day, and 

 I found where thirty-three partridges had been killed and eaten. Thirty 

 had been killed by owls and hawks, one by a fox, and one by a wild cat, and 

 one by an animal of some kind, I could not tell what. This is the truth 

 about a section eight or ten miles in circumference in Cornwall, Conn." 



Edward F. Staples, East Taunton, Mass., in Forest and Stream, 

 December 7, 1907, writes: " In this section at least, there are four reasons 

 for the scarcity of ruffed grouse: over-supply of foxes, goshawks, a cold, 

 late spring, and the loss of our pine woods. Ticks are not guilty this 

 time. * * * When the season closed last year there were a nice lot 

 of birds left, an ample supply if all had gone well; but in December the 

 goshawks came down from up north and they were the fiercest raiders I 



