30 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. 
femyr-ruhrum), which was unusually abundant in pastures where the 
birds foraged. They had picked up also long-horned grasshoppers 
{Xiphid'nim sj).) and a few black crickets. Crickets often swarm in 
fields during fall, and offer tempting morsels to birds. The ruffed 
grouse occasionally eats such caterpillars as cutworms, army worms, 
cotton worms {Alabama arg'dlacea)^ the red-humped apple worm 
(Schizura concinna), and the oak-leaf caterpillar {Symmerista alhi- 
frons). A number of observers, among them Doctors Fisher and 
Weed, report that it feeds on oak caterpillars. 
The ruffed grouse, like the bobwhite, prefers beetles to any other 
insects. It takes almost as many of them as of all other kinds put 
together, including even such small ones as the clover weevil {Sito)u\s 
hi.^pidtdus). It likes also the injurious leaf-eating beetles {CJinjso- 
melidce), destroying "even the notorious potato beetle {Leptinotarsa 
decemlineata) . It eats the pale-striped flea beetle {Sy^tena hianda). 
as well as many other leaf beetles, including Systena kudsonias. 
Disonycha caroliniana^ Chcetocnema sp., Galenicella sagittaria'^ and 
the grapevine pest, Adoxus vitis. By scratching, the grouse unearths 
many pests not found by other birds, notably beetle larvie, click 
beetles, and May beetles, including Lachnostema hh^suta. It also 
consumes another injurious beetle, DicheJonycha sp., closely related to 
the May beetles and resembling them in habits and appearance. It 
scratches up many ground beetles belonging to Pterostichiis^ Aniso- 
dartyhfs, Tlarpaliis^ and other genera. Beetles of other families 
also — fireflies {Lampyridw) ^ metallic wood borers {Buprestlda^)^ and 
Calitys scabra {Trogostidoi) — are in the food list. 
The grouse feeds also on such miscellaneous insects as flies, bugs, 
ants, and such other Hymenoptera as sawflies and ichneumon flies. 
A large proportion of the flies are slow-flying species, like crane flies, 
which are preyed upon by many other kinds of birds. Bugs, how- 
ever, are much more often destroyed by bobwhite and the ruffed 
grouse than by other birds. The ruffed grouse has been known to 
prey on the chinch bug, which at times is the most injurious insect 
in our country, and seldom destroyed by any except gallinaceous 
birds. Farmers who permit market hunters to rob them of their 
game should remember this fact. The grouse picks up also many 
other bugs, among them predaceous species like the ambush bug 
(Phymata sp.) and the assassin bug (Redurmht). They eat also 
homopterous insects, including leaf hoppers {Jassidoa) and buffalo 
tree ho])pers (Mrmhracidw). 
Like many other birds, the ruffed grouse eats ants, frequently 
including such large species as C amponotus pennsylv aniens. Among 
small ants may be mentioned the pavement ant {Tetramovmiii 
