ai8 
ing matter which it contains, but for the beauty of its 
illustrations. These are by Mr. Fuertes, the great bird 
painter of the day, and each deserves a frame. Among 
the species figured are the red-tailed and Cooper's hawk, 
screech owl, black-billed cuckoo, three species wood- 
peckers, three of flycatchers ; there being about a dozen 
plates, all of them representing familiar and useful birds. 
It is evident that the proofs of this interesting paper 
did not pass under the author's careful eye, for there are 
too many typographical errors, both in the English and 
the Latin words. 
Mr* Rhoads^ Paper on Elfc. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
As to elk traits, habits, behavior or habitat, food, dis- 
positions, etc., the article in the Forest and Stream of 
Oct. 17, reprinted fromUhe notes of Samuel N. Rhoads, 
is by long odds the most valuable and comprehensive 
treatise on elk that I have ever seen : a most valuable 
contribution to natural history. 
Chaeles Hallock. 
^ttd 0niu 
All communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co., 
New York, and not to any individual connected with the paper. 
The Game Laws in Brief 
is the standard authority of fish and game laws of the United 
States and Canada. It tells everything and gives it correctly. 
See in advertising pages list of some of the dealers who handle 
the Brief. 
American Game Birds. 
II. — The Roffed Groose. 
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 sports- 
man, endeavors 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, woodcraft and endurance as no 
other bird taxes them and as no other bird can tax 
them; and all these requirements are necessarily sup- 
plemented by a gun of good killing powers, one se- 
lected with special reference to cover shooting; and 
last, but not least, a dog of more than ordinary intelli- 
gence and good intent and good training, if the sport 
is to have any successful results and pleasing finish in 
its action. If any element of the sportsman's ruffed 
grouse 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 colorings; racy of form and faultless in symmetry; 
wild, dashing, 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 particu- 
lar 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 becomes dry 
and unpalatable; and in that unfortunate condition it 
probably was when that eminent authority, Wilson, 
partook of it, and thereafter, in his "American Orni- 
thology," wrote of it: "At these -inclement seasons, 
however, 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 ac- 
cording to individual fancy in matters of food as in all 
other matters, and it is well that it is so. If all 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 ruffed 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 hilly or mountainous 
country, and of these it many times selects the densest 
recesses; or the timber of seamy and rocky hillsides; 
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. 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
For man it has the most imcompromising 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 its habitat it prefers that it be near a 
supply of good water and an abundance of good food, 
for it is a good feeder. Whortleberries, blackberries, 
beechnuts, acorns, chestnuts, partridge berries and 
buds are readily accepted as food in their proper sea- 
son. 
The bud of the laurel is said to render the flesh pois- 
onous for food purposes, though the belief seems to 
rest more on tradition 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 
the 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 nientioned is not necessarily good ruffed grouse 
country. Some sections have been stripped too much; 
some have suffered from the worst of all despqilers, 
the snarer; while others, to all appearances favorable, 
are not frequented by it. 
Unlike 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 choosing its home and haunts distinctly 
apart from those of man. In the East it is called "par- 
tridge"; in sections 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 palatable huckleberries and blackberries, 
though rarely venturing further than a short flight, and 
often but a few yards from cover. 
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 after- 
ward; and if the gunner disturb it once or twice, the 
full wildness of its nature and its constant alertness to 
avoid man are fully and permanently aroused. 
Then man and the places he' frequents 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 ruft'ed grouse on the wing within 
range, then the difficulties of killing it 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 ruffed grouse is always swift and 
decisive in its flight. But in the open, whether it be 
on fie'ld or prairie, there is an even light and an un- 
obstructed view. Then for safety the bird can rely 
only on its swiftness of wing, all too slow when pitted 
against the sportsman who can, under those circum- 
stances, with studied quickness or deliberation, com- 
mand a large circle around him. Thus the ruft'ed 
grouse is at a fatal disadvantage when shot at in the 
open field, as is also every other bird pursued under 
the same conditions; but these conditions are rare in- 
deed in ruffed grouse shooting, foi", as mentioned be- 
fore, it ventures into the open only on such infrequent 
occasions as it is tempted to search therein for food, 
and then only in plaices seldom invaded by man, where 
it fancies there is freedom from pursuit. To all fixed 
habits there seems to be an exception for a short 
period in the fall, when it is subject to a crazy way- 
wardness. 
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 diminution of its swiftest speed, seemingly having 
a charmed manner of flying through tree tops and 
thickets as if they were but phantom trees of the wood- 
land, or shadows offering no obstruction to its onward 
flight. 
And in its favorite haunts it is a master of the art of 
self-defense. It can utilize thickets, trees, old fences, 
ledges, stone walls, swift wings and endless cunning 
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 nearest thicket, 
or the trunk of a tree, or 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, or at least hampering the 'shooter greatly and 
oftentimes causing 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 and flushing after he is some yards further 
onward. This wile is oftenest practiced after it has. 
been flushed, marked down and pursued. Both man 
and dog are apt to pass it then, though they may fol- 
low in the exact line of flight. The shooter may hear 
iQct. 24, iyoj. 
the irritating roar of the bird's wings behind him, on \ 
ground but a moment before passed over, or catch a 
shadowy glimpse as it dashes away from some tree 
top. f^' I 
Owing to its short flights and its proneness to take • 
a straight or nearly straight line, the persistent shooter ' 
may be able to mark and flush the bird again and 1 
again. It sometimes in repeated flights, returns to ■ 
near the place where it was "first found, and it always 
takes the flights so that ground and cover are to its 
advantage in avoiding danger. 
Once in a while a fool bird will be found, which will ! 
do the very thing it ought not to do, commonly pay- 
ing for the lapse with its life; so that if there is any- 
thing in the theory of heredity, the ruffed grouse 
should be uniformly of high capabilities, the fool birds 
being killed promptly and never breeding. 
By far the greater part of the shooting is at close 
range, as it needs must be in thicket or woods, where ji 
the longest views are short and obstructed by trees, 
or ledges or the undergrowth, or the hilly nature of 
the ground, where in the early season the view may 
not be greater than a few yards or feet if the leaves 
have not fallen. 
It then is not an infrequent occurrence that the 
shooter will hear the startling whir of wings close by 
him, and yet be unable either to shoot or to mark the < 
bird's course from inability to see the bird at all. The '„ 
light of the woods, broken and broken again as it is • 
through the irregular openings in the tree tops and j 
branches and leaves interposing, with here and ^^ere 
shafts of clear light and masses of shadows inter- 
spersed everywhere, add a difficulty to quick and clear ' 
vision, and therefore to the difficulty of accurate shoot- 
ing, differing thus from shooting in the open. 
The successful ruffed grouse shooter must be ever 
promptly ready to shoot, and further must be quick 1 
of eye and motion. He must instantly decide on the 
manner of making the shot, taking advantage of all ! 
the few opportunities offered, and avoiding the obstruc- 
tions which interpose. No studied effort at aiming is 
possible. Cover shooting of all kinds requires quick 
action, but ruffed grouse shooting requires the quick- 
est. Of all snap shooting, ruffed grouse shootuig is 
the snappiest; and the successful shooter of that bird 
must excel in that kind of shooting, since in most cases 
he will have but an instantaneous glimpse of the bird 
in the unfavorable mixed lights and shadows and cover. 
For this shooting the gun should be light, short of 
barrel — 26 to 28-inch — and a cylinder bore, tor a 
full choked gun is entirely out of place in such cover 
shooting, equally unsatisfactory when it does or doesn't 
kill, it being a miss in the first instance and often a 
badly mutilated bird in the second. 
The average shooter will find that he has success 
far below his opportunities even when equipped with 
the gun most fitting for the work. In this shooting , 
there is no waiting for opportunities to fit the gun. 
The successful shooter must take the shots that are 
offered and as they are offered, it matters not how 
difficult they appear or how brief the opportunities may 
be. He may catch but a momentary, shadowy glimpse 1 
of the bird as it crosses some diminutive opening, or 
he may see it for an instant in a maze of leaves and 
branches, or he may get only a partial glimpse of it 
and some disturbed leaves in the course of its flight, 
yet those are the opportunities which are the most 
numerous and which must be relied on for the bulk ' 
of the shooting; in short, that is ruffed grouse shoot- .1 
ing. , 
If the shooter be too indolent or apathetic to be ever I 
ready to shoot, or if he be too slow to take advantage 
of the opportunities, his success will be but meager so 
far as material results are concerned, though he may 
be greatly encouraged by the belief that his last ill suc- 
cess was due to faults in the bird, and that if he can i 
have another opportunity he will acquit himself nicely. 
The opportunity comes and failure again evokes more ' 
excuses. Once in rare whiles the shooter will have a 
good opportunity, catching the bird in some corner , 
so favorable that the advantage is with the shooter, 
but such instances are rare indeed, and by themselves 
would make but little sport. 
To be ready for the opportunities, the .sportsman 
must be quiet and never relax his vigilance, and his 
gun must be so held that it can instantly be brought 
into position to shoot. The nerves of the shooter must 
be constantly at a high tension, in readiness for the 1 
rise of the bird and the instantaneous shot. Every | 
factulty must be at a high key. The ver- moment that i 
the shooter relaxes his attention will be the moment i 
that the bird will rise, and before sportsman can get 
ready the opportunity is gone. It will be seen that 1 
the man who dawdles with his gun, who is slow in the 
handling of it, or who is noisy, cannot hope for any 
satisfactoi-y success in shooting the bird of game birds; j 
the ruffed grouse. On the other hand, he can be keyed | 
up to too high a pitch, over-ready when the bird rises. | 
A nervous flurry does nearly as much to disarrange j 
the desired results as does the more indolent dawdling. 
I 
V 
