RUFFED GROUSE. 
31 
This beautiful species of Grouse, known by the name of 
Pheasant in the Middle and Western States, and by that of 
Partridge in New England, is found to inhabit the coartinent 
from Hudson Bay and the parallel of 56° to Georgia, but 
are most abundant in the Northern and Middle States, where 
^hey often prefer the most elevated and wooded districts ; 
and at the South they affect the mountainous ranges and 
valleys which border upon or lie within the chains of the 
Alleghanies. They are also prevalent in the Western States 
as far as the line of the Territory of Mississippi ; and though 
not found on the great Western plains, they reappear in the 
forests of the Rocky Mountains and follow the Columbia 
nearly to the Pacific. 
Although, properly speaking, sedentary, yet at the approach 
of autumn, according to Audubon, they make, in common with 
foe following species, partial migrations by single families in 
quest of a supply of food, and sometimes even cross the Ohio 
in the course of their peregrinations. In the northern parts of 
New England they appear also to be partially migratory at the 
approach of winter, and leave the hills for lower and more 
sheltered situations. So prompt, indeed, at times are their 
movements that in November, T831, in travelling nearly to 
foe extremity of New Hampshire, not a single bird of the 
species was now to be seen, as they had no doubt migrated 
southward with the first threatening and untimely snow which 
fallen, being indeed so unusually abundant previously to 
nt period as to sell in the market of Boston as low as twelve 
mid a half cents apiece. Although elevated countries and 
rocky situations thickly overgrown with bushes and dense ever- 
greens by rivers and brooks are their chosen situations, yet at 
dmes they frequent the lowlands and more open pine-forests 
m the vicinity of our Northern towns and cities, and are even 
occasionally content to seek a retreat far from their favorite 
1 s in the depth of a Kentucky cane-brake or the barrens of 
ow Jersey. They are somewhat abundant in the shrubby 
Oak-barrens of Kentucky and Tennessee, in which their food 
u ounds. This consists commonly in the spring and fall of 
