Ruffed Grouse in Snow.— From records in the snow I have come to 
the possibly trite conclusion that the Ruffed Grouse {Bomsa nmbellus), 
when not scared from the ground, will often deliberately clamber to some 
stump, or other eminence, in order to get good wing-space below its body 
for the first stroke in flight. The awkwardness of a leap from the level 
I found beautifully illustrated upon a flat piece of fresh soft snow some 
three inches in depth. Here, at the bird’s spring, its entire form from 
tip of tail just to the swell of the throat, and from tip to tip of both wings, 
had pressed a mould some inch or two deep. This mould measured 
eighteen inches long and twenty inches in spread. Even the primaries 
of both wings were perfectly distinct, struck hard and clean. At a dis- 
tance of eleven inches in front of this wing-beat the primaries had again 
struck into the snow, an inch in depth, as the wings met below the bird’s 
body on the second stroke. The tips of these marks at their deepest were, 
I think, about four inches apart, showing that the bird normally needs 
an air-space below the body of almost the wing’s full length. On Arm 
ground the legs might push to this height; but on soft snow this manner 
of departure could hardly have been premeditated. These observations 
were made at Beverly Farms, Mass.— Reginald C. Robbins, Bosto?i, 
Mass. . , ^ 
Auk, XVIII, April., 1901, pf • ' ■ 
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