97

Concord, Mass.
1916
Aug. 30
to
Nov. 4

Ruffed Grouse

then Birch Field was regularly frequented, for months
in succession, by half a dozen or more birds. They were
more or less given to scattering about singly by day
but almost invariably came together shortly before
sunset, in a sheltered little hollow partly shaded by
a few small branches and hemmed in on every side
by taller pines and birches. Here I flushed them
oftenest from the ground, near or perhaps directly
beneath the branches. It must have afforded them
some food especially attractive or exceptionally abundant
but to my eye the vegetation, both herbaceous and arboreal,
did not differ essentially from that common to the entire
neighborhood except as regards the larches - originally
planted by me there and elsewhere in a few places where
they are not indigenous. Their presence may have accounted
for that of the Grouse although I was unable to find