Oct. 10, 1896.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
288 
DEER AND LILYPADS. 
Lansing, Mich., Sept, 30. — Editor Forest and Stream: 
A few thinfrs in woodcraft are hard to explain. In the 
•'•Trapper's Guide," page 176, I find: "It has been said by 
somebody that people generally step a little further with 
the right foot than they do with the left, so that when 
they have nothing to guide them the tendency is to bear 
to the left; thus in time they make a circle." In "Wood- 
craft," by Nesamuk, page 20, 1 find: "Carry the compass 
in your hand and look at it every few minutes; for the 
tendency to swerve from a straight course when a man is 
lost — and nearly always to the right — is a thing past un- 
derstanding." So much for the opinion of a real woods- 
man regarding a matter of fact. 
Something like a year ago I mentioned a matter of con- 
versation that I had with two of the most successful and 
observing hunters and trappers and practical woodsmen 
that Michigan ever produced, regarding deer eating lily- 
pads. These men had spent a lifetime in the woods, had 
killed hundreds of deer and had unlimited opportunities 
for observation, and neither of them had ever seen a deer 
eat lilypads, or ever found a fragment of a lily leaf or 
stem in the throat or stomach of a deer; yet they had 
killed scores of deer while feeding among the lilypads, 
and examined a great many deer with a special object of 
getting at the actual facts in the case. 
Not satisfied with this statement from two of the most 
competent woodsmen in Michigan, I caUed upon a gentle- 
man who has for many years had quite an extensive deer 
park, and in the park was a small, shallow lake well 
stocked with lilies. In this lake, among the lilies, he 
had watched them feeding for hours and hours for a 
period extending over ten years at least. And yet this 
gentleman, a close student of nature and with opportuni- 
ties seldom equaled by any man, never saw a deer eat a 
lilypad, or a lily leaf, or a lily stem. He bad often seen 
them pick a stem, chew it for a while, and strip off the 
tender outer stem and leaf coating; but they never swal- 
low the leaf or stem or any part of the lily. 
In Forest and Stream a few weeks ago I noticed some 
lady who was out with a guide had settled the question, 
and knows positively all about deer and that they did eat 
lilypads. She had seen acres of stems sticking out of the 
water, and her guide had told her that the pads had all 
been eaten off by the deer. If the guide had been a good 
observer he might have explained to her that the lilypads 
might have been picked by some other animal, or in some 
other way than by the deer; and that because a stem is 
seen sticking out of the mouth of a deer is no more evi- 
dence that the deer swallowed any part of the lily plant 
than that the observing lady herself would swallow every 
fish bone that she chanced to take in her mouth. 
In Forest and Stream of Sept. 19, W. S., of Town- 
ship No. 3, Maine, writes: "She was standing among the 
pads, and would bury her head in the water up to her 
ears, bringing up each time a mouthful of stems." Now 
W. L. S. is on the right track, only he must give the 
matter a great deal more of close observation, when he 
will find, I am very sure, that the observation of my 
friends is correct. Deer do feed with their heads almost 
under the water, and when they are feeding in that way 
they are feeding on the tender weed growth that is so 
very abundant among the lily plants. They do some- 
times pull off a stem perhaps, but not often, and when 
they do pull off a stem or leaf it is by accident, and the 
leaf or stem always comes up with a mouthful of other 
tender water weeds that they feed upon. They never 
swallow a lily leaf or lilypad or a stem of a lily plant. 
They sometimes take them into the mouth with other 
food, but they spit them out, and never swallow the pads 
or any part of the lily plant. Julian. 
The Academy of Natural Sciencfs, op Philadel- 
phia. — Editor Forest and Stream: I frequently read 
your publication and derive much pleasure from it. The 
naturalist frequently sees curious statements in print 
about the habits of game. In your columns it has been 
said that deer do not eat lilypads. Of course, such a 
statement is ridiculous. In M?aine and the Adirondacks I 
have literally seen miles of water with the stalks of the 
lilies sticking up out of the water minus the pads. I 
have also seen the deer eating them in water where they 
had to swim as they snipped off the pads. In some of the 
bogs of Maine you will often see more cropped stalks in 
the water than pads, and this in districts where moose 
are not plentiful, and in the Adirondacks it can hardly be 
said that moose account for the stalk ends minus the 
pads. Also where deer are much hunted they are noc- 
turnal in habit, but are naturally diurnals. 
In the mountains of Virginia, where I was this winter, 
deer had migrated in search of mast, as the dry weather 
had made it very scarce. This was in Craig county, in 
the Alleghany Mountains. Dr. Henry Skinner. 
Quail Adopted by Domestic Turkey. 
Maryland, Sept. 28. — Editor Forest and Stream: A 
neighbor called my attention to a peculiar occurrence a 
few days ago. A turkey hatched a brood of young ones, 
she having stolen her nest, and brought them to the bam 
to be fed. He observed a small chick with the young 
turkeys which he thought was a young guinea, but upon 
closer inspection he found to be a young partridge (quail). 
It has now been with the turkeys for two months, and 
comes and goes regularly with them to be fed night and 
morning, and if he feeds them in the barn the partridge 
goes and eats with them. He also roosts with them on a 
fence near the house. The bird is now nearly full grown. 
Al. Hill. 
A Cow Moose. 
Last August, while camping on Ripogenus Lake, in 
Maine, we paddled out one evening with our two guides 
to catch a few trout for the next morning's breakfast. 
Aa we were about to turn into the stream at the head of 
the lake our guide suddenly pointed across the water to a 
Bmall black object surrounded by foamy waves. It was 
undoubtedly a moose, and a big one, we judged, from 
the size of the waves. 
We turned about and paddled with all our strength till, 
on nearer approach, the object proved to be a cow moose 
swimming some distance from the shore, Soon she 
caught sight of us and stared, shaking her enormous ears 
most comical'y, then laid them back and swam furi- 
ously for land. We paddled fast, in the hope of heading 
her off and chasing her across the lake, but she reached 
the shore a few yards ahead of us. Once on the bank, 
her u?ly figure looked like an ill-shapen mule. She 
started at an easy trot across the marshy log-filled lagoon 
between the lake and the woods, swimming through the 
patches of water and climbing over the logs with little 
apparent labor. Then she disappeared in the woods, and 
calling to her calf, stamped off. R. K. Thorndikb, 
J. C. Grew. 
The Linnaean Society of New York. 
Regular meetings of the Society will be held at the 
American Museum of Natural History, Seventy-seventh 
street and Eighth avenue, on Tuesday evenings, Oct.* 13 
and 27, at 8 o'clock. 
Oct, 13. — J. A. Allen, •'Notes of a Visit to Some of the 
Natural History Museums of Europe." 
Oct. 27.— Edwin I. Haines, "Birds of the Vicinity of 
Stamford, Delaware County, N. Y., with Remarks on 
the Summer Residents." 
Walter W. Granger, Secretary. 
knte ^ug Httd 0m 
Our readers are invited to send us for these columns 
notes of the game supply, shooting resorts, and their 
experience in the field. 
SOME AMERICAN GAME BIRDS.* 
II.— The Ruffed Grouse. 
From the time when the mind of man runneth not to 
the contrary in matters of shooting for sport, the ruffed 
grouse, by common consent, has been classed with the 
most difficult of game birds which the sportsman en- 
deavors to bring to bag under the approved conditions of 
sportsmanship, if indeed it be not the most difficult of all. 
For it taxes the sportsman's nerve, patience, skill, wood- 
craft and endurance as no other bird taxes them and as 
no other bird can tax them; and all these requirements 
are necessarily supplemented by a gun of good killing 
powers, one selected with special reference to cover shoot- 
ing; and last, but not least, a dog of more than ordinary 
intelligence and good intent and good training, if the 
sport is to have any successful results and a pleasing 
finish in its action. If any element of the sportsman's 
craft be missing, success is marred accordingly. 
The ruffed grouse in every art and article is a bird to 
fill the sportsman's ideal — its habitat is in nature's most 
picturesque setting; the bird is beautiful in its delicate 
tracings and markings, and rich and varied in its color- 
ings; racy of form and faultless in symmetry; wild, dash- 
ing, daring, alert and infinitely resourceful in its crafty 
devices when pursued; exclusive in its habits and withal 
a bird of rare excellence for the table, its flesh being of 
delicate texture and pleasing flavor, so palatable, indeed, 
that it is by many epicures more highly prized than is the 
flesh of any other game bird. With those who may 
vaunt the excellence of the woodcock, the snipe, the 
prairie chicken, the duck, the turkey, etc., it also holds a 
high place in their esteem; and the exceptional man, 
whose fancy for one particular kind of bird prejudices 
him against all others, will not speak unkindly of it. 
And yet, delicious as it is when properly prepared for the 
table, it can easily be spoiled by ill cooking, and of bad 
cooks there is no end. The art of cooking it- properly is 
quite as rare as is the skill of killing it properly. If it be 
cooked too much or if it be cooked improperly, it loses 
much of its rich delicacy of flavor and texture and be- 
comes dry and unpalatable; and in that unfortunate con- 
dition it probably was when that eminent authority, Wil- 
son, partook of it, and thereafter, in his "American Orni- 
thology," wrote of it: "At these inclement seasons, how- 
ever, they are generally lean and dry, and indeed at all 
times their flesh is far inferior to that of the quail or of 
the pinnated grouse." Yet, as tastes are not all alike, the 
superlative will probably be placed according to individ- 
ual fancy in matters of food as in all other matters, and it 
is well that it is so. If alP fancied alike, all would be 
monotony. Nevertheless, a man who cannot have a 
culinary spell cast over him by a skillfully cooked ruffed 
grouse, it having been kept a proper length of time after 
killing— not too long— has no music in his soul and may 
not be even fit for treason and spoils. 
For its home the niffed grouse prefers the country 
above the snow line, in its rough and timbered sections, 
for it is strictly a bird of the woods and thickets, pre- 
ferring the roughest parts of a rough, hilly or mountain- 
ous country, and of these it many times selects the 
densest recesses; or the timber of seamy and rocky hill- 
sides; or where ledges, fallen tree trunks and tree tops in 
the woods secluded from man guard against intrusion; 
and even the timbered swamps are not obnoxious to it 
when it seeks a habitat free from the incursions of man. 
For the latter it has the most uncompromising aversion. 
It selects its habitat in the places least frequented by 
him, though once the habitat is determined upon it holds 
to it with dauntless persistency, let the gunner disturb 
it as often as he may. 
In choosing ita habitat it prefers that it be near a sup- 
* The first paper in this series, the Woodcock, was printed in issue of 
Sept. 18. Others to follow win be devoted to the Quail and the Snipe. 
ply of good water and an abundance of good food, for it 
is a good feeder, whortleberries, blackberries, beechnuts, 
acorns, chestnuts, partridge berries and buds being . 
readily accepted &a food in their proper season. The bud 
of the laurel is said to render the flesh poisonous for food 
purposes, though the belief seems' to rest more on tradi- 
tion than on any direct evidence, 
The habitat of the ruffed grouse is in the timbered 
country from the Atlantic to the Pacific, bounded on the 
south in an irregular way by suitable habitat and tti© 
snow belt; and on the north into British America to a 
line not definitely determined, though, as a matter of 
course, all timbered or rough country within the region 
mentioned is not necessarily good ruffed grouse country. 
Some parts have been shot too much; some suffered from 
the worst of all despoilers, the snarer; while others, to 
all appearances favorable, are not frequented by it. tTn- 
like the quail, which loves to make its home near the 
homes of man, and the prairie chicken, which sticks 
closely to the grain fields, the ruffed grouse is ever intent 
on making its home and haunts distinctly apart from 
those of man. In the East it is called "partridge;" in 
the section of Pennsylvania, "pheasant." 
In the breeding season, when it has been free from 
pursuit and harassing alarms, it sometimes strays a short 
distance from cover into the adjacent fields, where grow 
huckleberries and blackberries, though rarely venturing 
further than a short flight from cover, and often but a 
few yards from it. 
Though always a wary bird and ever avoiding man, it 
is not so wild and quick to take wing before the frost and 
unsettled weather of fall set in as it is afterward, and if 
the gunner disturb it once or twice the full wildness of 
its nature and its constant alertness to avoid man are 
fully set in action. Then man and the places he fre- 
quents are shunned as much as possible. Indeed it is not 
a social bird with its own kind. After the young birds 
have matured they separate, and in the fall the gunner 
will find them in ones and twos, and at rare times in 
threes. 
Given to the sportsman the conditions of an open field 
and therein a ruffed grouse on the wing within range, 
the difficulties of killing it then are but little if any 
greater than those which obtain in the killing of a prairie 
chicken on the open prairie, though whether in open or 
cover the former is always swift and decisive in its flight; 
but in the open, whether it be on field or prairie, there is 
an even light and an unobstructed view wherein for 
safety the bird can rely only on its swiftness of wing, all 
too slow when pitted against the sportsman who can 
under those circumstances with quickness or deliberation 
command a large circle around him. Thus the ruffed 
grouse is at a fatal disadvantage when, shot at in the 
open field, as is also every other bird when shot at under 
the same conditions; but these conditions are rare indeed 
in ruffed grouse shooting, for, as mentioned before, it 
ventures into the open only on such infrequent occasions 
as it is tempted to search for food, and then only in places 
seldom invaded by man and where it fancies there is 
freedom from pursuit. To this there seems to be an ex- 
ception for a short period in the fall, when it is subject to 
a crazy waywardness. 
While in the open field it is strong and swift of wing, 
in cover it is at its best. It will on occasion dash through 
the densest thickets with apparent ease, with no diminu- 
tion of its swiftest speed, having seemingly a charmed 
manner of flying through tree tops and thickets as if they 
were but phantom trees of the woodland, or shadows 
offering no obstruction to its onward flight. 
And in its favorite haunts it is a master of the art of ' 
self-defense in so far as it can utilize thickets, trees, old 
fences, ledges, stone walls, swift wings and endless cun- 
ning to evade its pursuer. Be the position of the shooter 
what it may in reference to this bird in cover, it, when 
flushed, takes instant advantage of the nearby thicket, or 
the trunk of the tree, or the old fence, keeping one or the 
other between itself and the gunner in its line of flight, 
thus in a great measure blocking all opportunity to shoot 
at it, or at least hampering the shooter greatly and 
thereby causing many a miss. 
The bird, in most instances, times its rise so as to have 
the advantage of some nearby object as a shield to its 
flight. On occasion it will display a courage bordering 
on audacity, permitting the shooter to pass close by it and 
flushing after he is some yards further onward. This 
wile is oftenest practiced after it has been flushed and 
pursued. Both man and dog are apt to pass it then, 
though they may follow in the exact line of flight, and 
the shooter may hear the irritating roar of the bird's 
wings behind him, on the ground but a moment before 
passed over, or catch a shadowy glimpse as it dashes 
away from some tree top. 
Owing to its short flights and its proneness to take a 
straight or nearly straight line, the persistent shooter may 
be able to flush the bird again and again; it sometimes in 
repeated flights returning to near the place where it was 
first found, and nearly always taking the flights so that 
ground and cover are to ita advantage in avoiding dan- 
ger. Once in a while a fool bird wiR be found, which will 
do the very thing it ought not to do, commonly paying 
for the lapse with its Ufe; so that if there is anything in 
