Feb. 28, T903.] 
Forest and stream. 
168 
But this is wide enough of the Vaiala dressmaking. As 
soon as I saw what was intended, I called back the girls 
who were carrying off my share of the pulp and in- 
structed Tanoa in the main outlines of another speech for 
him to make. The sum and gist of it all was that I gave 
up all my share to the women of Vaiala who had done 
the work. He could do all the oratorical stunt about it 
that he wanted, but in the course of his remarks he was 
to make that idea plain. The upshot was that Tofi made 
a speech of unbounded gratitude in acceptance of my 
munificence and said further that in recognition of my 
desire to know more of their arts Fa'afili would pick out 
the best of the bark and under my superivsion make me 
a piece of tapa with explanations and illustrations of 
how it was done, 
I could have had no better preceptor, for Fa'afili was a 
very keen woman, quick to understand what was wanted 
and simple in her way of making it plain. This is not 
merely my own judgment of the woman, for it is a mat- 
ter of history that it was the shrewdness of Fa'afili and 
no other that saved to her countrj^en a large amount 
of valuable land in and about Apia when the Land Com- 
mission was investigating titles. 
In the great house on the malae behind the Consulate 
my instructor installed the implements of her dressmak- 
ing craft, the log and the club, and invited rrre to see 
hoAV she went about the work. Here we spent several 
busy days in a sort of manual training school of savage 
arts in which I was the pupil. 
When last I had seen the rolls of bark they were neat 
bundles coiled upon themselves like a watchspring and 
held in place by lashings of fibre. Since then they had 
been, put to soak in fresh water, in salt and back again 
in fresh, until they had lost all resemblance to their 
former state. Now each lump was a mushy, pasty, 
sticky mass. Yet Fa'afili showed- me that in the agglu- 
tination of decomposed vegetable tissue there was some- 
thing that was not altogether slime, that it had consist- 
ency and that it could be pulled out by washing away the 
debris in a bowl of water. This proved to be the lace- 
like bast or inner bark which remained intact, despite its 
delicacy, through the whole operation or wetting which 
had set it free from the layers of the coarser and older 
outside bark. The first thing to do was to wash out this 
bast and to rid it of every trace of the rotted tissue. As 
soon as each piece of bast had been cleaned it was put to 
soak in a bowl with the steadily increasing supply of ma- 
terial until the last lump of pulp had been worked over. 
Fa'afili next took a handful of this bast, still mucilagi- 
nous with the sap despite the long soaking and the sev- 
eral washings. Before her was a large log with a smooth 
surface, one that had evidently been prepared with great 
care and had been long in use, for the timber was thor- 
oughly seasoned and the surfaced side bore a high polish. 
Her lump of bast she squeezed as dry as was possible 
without applying a twist; that, she explained, should 
never be done, for it would break the fibre. When she 
felt that she could squeeze out no more of the water, she 
patted the lump evenly upon her surfaced log and went 
to work with the club. This beater is one of the treas- 
ured possessions of every housewife and one that she 
will rarely consent to part with, for it represents long- 
and patient toil to make, and each person has her own 
set of opinions as to just what kind of scoring makes an 
efficient tapa beater. They are all made of ironwood, 
a timber dense enough to turn an axe; they are a little 
more than a foot in length, have a rounded handle and 
a square section through the part with which the beat- 
ing, is done, each side of the square being about two 
inches. Each of these beating surfaces is scored with 
lines of cross-hatchelling which ranges from very coarse 
on the first face to very fine on the last, or according to 
the individual fancy of some women the last or finishing 
face is marked with a series of very fine parallel lines 
running the length of the instrument. Patting the lump 
of bast with her right hand and clubbing it. with the 
beater in her left, Fa'afili hammered it out into a long 
"strip with the coarse face of the beater, maldng it cover 
a space about a foot square. I have neglected to ascer- 
tain whether the left hand is regarded as the better in 
this work, yet my observation went that most women 
employed the left. When the bast had been beaten long 
enough with the coarse face of the beater, Fa'afili folded 
it up square as one would a pocket handkerchief and beat 
it all over again with the next face of the beater. It is 
the merriest sound in the South Seas, this clatter of the 
.beater on the log when the women are beating tapa. 
IFa'afili and I were not the only ones thus engaged, all 
Vaiala was making its new gown for the approaching 
w edding and we were all at work- together. Insensibly 
the strokes of the beaters fell into unison, unconsciously 
the tempo would be increased until the clatter would be- 
come a din and then break off in unrhythmical confusion 
to' the accompaniment of peals of laughter from every 
house. Sometimes all hands would set out to beat some 
rude sort of tune. I added to the orchestration the "An- 
vil Chorus," to them a novelty and well appreciated. 
I'he sound of the tapa beating the Samoans call "tutu." 
The name suggests itself the moment one hears the 
sound. 
With each beating the film of cloth was seen to grow 
longer under our hands, longer and finer and more lacy 
r.s the finer faces of the beater were used. After coming 
out from under the fourth beating the web that Fa'afili, 
with the not unpardonable, certainly not unwomanly, 
pride of one who has done well a good thing, held up to 
niy ^n.ew was a strip about a foot wide by rather more 
tlian a yard in length. It was as fine as a very sheer 
cambric and very filmy. More than anything else it re- 
sembled a lace scarf, but the mesh was irregular, devoid 
of pattern, and interrupted here, there and everywhere 
by gaps and interstices. 
Before so dainty a tissue could be used for clothing, 
even in the South Sea where the garb is above all things 
:.\ry, it was clear that there must be several further oper- 
i'.iions. The first of these is bleaching. 
As the film comes from the beating it is generally yel- 
- 1 jwish in streaks and patches. The Samoan women have 
not been behind the women of other lands who .spin flax 
ai.d are therefore spinsters; they, too, have discovered 
•tlie sovereign properties of the grass for bleaching. 
AVhen each film had received its beating it was taken in 
iiand by Apikali, tiny though she was, yet none too 
young to help her elders, and with great care the small 
damsel spread the delicate tissue over smooth grass, 
weighting its edges with chunks of stone to prevent the 
eager wind from carrying it away to some other village 
down to leeward where less thrifty housewives might 
reap the fruit of our labor. 
There proved to be bast enough for several days' beat- 
ing. After it was all beaten out it took at least a week 
to bleach it to the snowy whiteness which it must pos- 
sess and then yet more days of hanging under cover in 
the full wind in order to supply a much desired blue or 
skimmed milk hue to the white. Fa'afili had a reputation 
as a cloth maker that must be sustained, and in addition 
she had the desire to set a high standard for me in case 
I should ever feel called upon to make cloth after I had 
left my ready friends in Vaiala. For these reasons we 
took no short cuts and skimped none of the work. 
While the cloth is bleaching itself white and airing 
itself blue this is a natural chapter division in the history 
of how Vaiala got its wedding gowns. They have been 
advanced a long stage from their place on the spindling 
saplings in the forest, they have passed largely out of the 
stage of the raw material, but there is a good deal yet to 
do before those new gowns are made. Still, the delay 
will do no harm, it v/ill but serve to call attention to the 
fact that even among the savages a new gown is no light 
and trifling procedure; above all things it demands ample 
consideration. Llewella Pierce Churchill. 
Our Wood Inhabiters in Winter. 
n.— The Ruffed Grouse. 
ViGOR^ Strength, alertness, the power to withstand the 
rigors of our northern w^inters, which, with their snows 
and sleets, bury the ordinary supply of food beyond his 
reach, all these qualities the ruffed grouse possesses. 
They are qualities which have been transmitted through 
a long line of ancestors, and have, perhaps, been accen- 
tuated by continued residence amid inclement surround- 
ings; but he has them all in a high degree; he must 
possess them in order that he may exist, for if he were 
not always wary to avoid, and quick and strong and 
crafty to escape the enemies which encompass him on 
every side, he would be destroyed, and what a calamity 
his extirpation would be! 
I venture to make the assertion that not one of all our 
w'ood inhabiters, not one of all our other birds, if they 
were to pass away, would be so greatly missed. 
The ruffed grouse occupies an unique position among 
our birds, in that it is a permanent resident in the coverts 
in which it was born, for it rarely wanders far from 
them, and when it does it is usually in search of food, 
and it returns to them when proper conditions prevail. 
Like many other species it is known in different sec- 
tions by a variety of names, and most of them are ab- 
surd misnomers. For instance, it is called in some por- 
tions of New England the birch partridge and gray part- 
ridge; in Massachusetts it is simply called partridge; in 
New York, grouse, or wood fowl, or pheasant; and in 
Pennsylvania the pheasant, grouse and ruffed grouse, the 
latter of which appellations is the only proper one. 
While in Ohio a number of years ago I found a nest of 
this species beneath an old fallen trunk of a tree, the 
bark of which I was for at least fifteen minutes knock- 
ing off in searching for beetles and other insects, during 
which time the old bird remained on her nest without 
moving, and only left it when my foot almost touched 
her. As she was the first I had seen in that section, I 
inquired, when I returned to the farm house where 1 
was stopping, if there were many grouse in that neigh- 
borhood. 
"Grouse?" repeated my host, arching his eyebrows with 
surprise. "Why, sir, we don't have any grouse at all 
here; none nearer than the prairies out west." 1 have 
always noticed that western people speak of localities .'S 
being "out west," and have wondered what they do in 
California and Oregon. 
Knowing that he meant the pinnated grouse or prairie 
chicken, I replied that I did not mean prairie hens, but 
partridges as Ave call them in New England. 
"Partridges, certainly," he replied. "We have heaps 
of them. Don't you hear them whistling in the fields?" 
"Whistling ! Partridges do not whistle," said I. But 
instantly remembering that the "quail" of New England 
is properly enough in the west called "partridge," I 
hastily contined : "That is, the partridges I mean, which 
live in deep woods, have a ruff of black feathers about 
the throat, and the male stands on old logs, and drums." 
"Ah, you mean the 'pheasant,' " replied the man, recog- 
nizing the bird from my description. "Nothing like call- 
ing things b}'^ their proper names. Yes, there are a right 
smart lot here some seasons ; in others they are scarcer." 
I have stated that the ordinary supply of food of the 
ruffed grouse, such as the checkerberries and their leaves, 
the partridge or eye berries, various seeds, acorns and 
beech nuts, is often buried deep in the snow and the bird 
is occasionally forced to go on "short commons" in coia- 
sequence, but he is not obliged to starve so long as there 
are any yellow birches or other deciduous trees to bud, 
or if there is an apple orchard accessible. 
The grouse, on flying into a tree, alights on a limb 
close to the trunk, where for a short time it stands up- 
right and perfectly motionless; this, apparently, is owing 
to its habits of caution, for until it has thoroughly re- 
connoitred its surroundings, until it is certain it is not 
pursued by one or more of its many enemies, it does not 
change its position in the slightest degree. 
In ascending into the tree from the ground, the bird 
makes but little noise, the thundering whirr with which 
it flushes before the sportsman being entirely absent. I 
have repeatedly seen them fly into trees, they having 
come perhaps from a considerable distance, but their 
flight was almost perfectly noiseless, and for the time be- 
ing I could hardly realize they were the grouse whose 
flush-flight I knew so well. 
When they are satisfied that there is no danger of be- 
ing molested, they begin to move about on the branches, 
and the rapidity and ea.se with which they climb about on 
the bud-beanng twigs is astonishing; one would hardly 
believe that birds of their build could move about on the 
limbs so freely. 
_ The buds are picked off by the bird seizing fhem in 
Its beak_ and twisting the head sideways; the celerity 
wilh which they obtain a satisfactory supply is remark- 
able, their crops being filled in a short quarter of an 
hour. 
The yellow birch seems to be a favorite tree with them 
but if an apple orchard is to be reached, they quickly 
hnd the fruit buds and regale themselves greedily. 
So destructive have they been in some localities that 
farmers and orchardists have raised vehement protests 
against their being protected by law. I have heard a 
great many complaints from Nova Scotia farmers, whose 
orchards are often near the forests in which the grouse 
make their homes, at the havoc worked by these birds 
and dire threats uttered for their destruction. 
In other sections also the bird seems to be disapproved 
of by orchard growers. A correspondent of a New 
Hampshire agricultural paper says; "Mr. George T, 
Patch, of Holhs, recently informed me that he examined 
the stomachs of two partridges shot in his orchard and 
iound in one 636 apple buds, and in the other over 500. 
At that rate, how long would it take even one partridge 
to destroy the prospect of fruit in an orchard of ordinary 
size. 
"There is a small orchard of young trees near my resi- 
dence, protected by a forest on the west side, some ten 
rods distant, from which the partridges make their 
evening visits at this season of the year, and they are so 
shy It IS next to impossible to get a shot at them. What 
IS to be done? If there is a law protecting partridges, I 
move It be repealed." 
_ The number of instances in which any considerable in- 
jury has been done by these birds is so small that there 
IS no danger of their being by public opinion generally 
threatened with destruction; in fact, there is a question 
that tlie bird does any injury to the fruit trees by remov- 
ing some of their buds, the opinion held by some fruit- 
growers being that the trees are benefitted by losing a 
share of their superfluous buds, the crop on the follow- 
ing year being composed of better, larger and more per- 
fect fruit. 
In traveling over the snow the grouse moves rapidly 
and with ease. All who have seen its tracks have no- 
ticed that the toe prints are very broad, and that if the 
tracks are in damp snow there are impressions of sorae- 
tlnng resembling comb-teeth on each side of the toes 
ihese marks are caused by the strong, horny scales 
which in winter are much broadened and elongated ; these 
pectinations seem to have been furnished by nature to 
facilitate the movement of the bird over the snow: by 
their aid he walks on snowshoes, as it were, and we can 
readiJy see what an assistance thev are to him. We may 
lollow these tracks readily, confident that there can be 
no question as to their identity. I have ofler^ trailed the 
bird for long distances and almost invariably flushed 
him, unless a hungry fox had followed him before me 
m which case a mass of draggled feathers and blood 
stains on the snow told too well the story of the tragedy 
that had been enacted. Generally, however, the sharp 
lookout that the grouse keeps enables him to foil the 
designs of crafty Reynard, and one may readily see that 
the escape has been made by the print of the wings in 
the snow as the bird sprang into the air and flew away 
to a safer retreat .L, 
The habit of the ruffed grouse of diving into the deep 
snow is well known; this is done as a protection against 
the severe cold which often prevails in our northern 
torests, the fleecy covering affording a warm and 
ettectual place of refuge. 
After entering the snow the bird tunnels through it a 
short distance, and we may never expect to find it at the 
point where it makes an entrance. I have followed the 
general direction that was taken by the bird when it en- 
tered the snow and have found its point of exit to be 
several rods distant, the meked snow of the walls of its 
lodging place showing tlie effects of the heat of the 
bird very plainly. 
The ''drumming" habit of this species has been 
described by many ornithologists and in a variety of 
ways By most writers the habit is supposed to be fol- 
lowed only during the mating season, but it is not so 
restricted, for I have heard the tattoo in about every 
month of the year, even at night and in the coldest 
weather of winter. On one occasion, as I was camping 
in the wilds of Nova Scotia in December, when the 
weather was so cold that my mustache was filled with 
trost as I lay on my couch of balsam boughs, and the 
water m the bucket in the tent was thickly skimmed 
vnth ice, I heard at daybreak one morning the rolliuf^ 
beat of a grouse within ten rods of our camp, and so 
unsuspicious was he that he kept on his drumming loo- 
lor several hours, although my two guides and I were 
noisily_ moving about the camp-fire, chopping wood and 
preparing breakfast. In fact, he even drew near and 
wandered about the vicinity of the tent during the day 
seemingly glad to have our companionship. 
On another occasion as I was tenting on one of the 
tributaries of the Miramichi River in New Brunswick, 
an old male grouse that we had heard drumming near by 
after a short time became aware that we were friendly 
upon which discovery he became a daily visitor at our 
camping place and even ate pieces of biscuit that we 
threw on the ground before him. This was not an alto- 
gether novel experience to me, for I have found that 
although after the grouse has been hunted, it is one of 
the wildest and most difficult of approach of any of our 
game birds, if unmolested it is unsuspicious to a remark- 
able degree, and will often permit a person to approach 
it as unconcernedly as would a domestic fowl. It is 
often seen in small bevies about the old farms and pas- 
tures, and in Nova Scotia I have actually found them 
gleaning buckwheat and rye fields. Although, as a rule 
the ruffed grouse can seldom be relied on to fill the game 
bag alone, there are exceptional occasions when a good 
bag may be made; if unbroken broods of well orowu 
birds are foimd in suitable covers, particularly^'laro-e 
patches of berry bushes in the fall in which the "rouse 
luxuriate on the ripened fruit, very satisfactory shooting 
may be obtained. The best work in grouse shooting that 
