1889 . 
Maine. 
L. Umbagog. 
(2: 
i &» 1 £-§~£? 
a noise closely resembling the snicker of the red squirrel.This 
indicates that it has at length become alarmed. It may then 
fly, but usually it starts off at a slow walk, continuing the 
snickering noise, shaking its head violently at each step and 
erecting it s crest, Sinless followed. L t seems to recover from 
its alarm after going a few yards and then pauses and stands 
erect again. If it flies it merely flutters up into the near¬ 
est bush or to the branch of a spruce or hemlock twenty or 
thirty feet above the ground. jXHH*., Sometimes it will drop 
back to the ground again after merely rising over a windfall 
or belt of bushes. In a tree th&< Grouse is very hard to dfeWv*. 
unless its flight has been previously marked to the spot. It 
stands rather erect, its feathers drawn in closely to its body, 
its neck stretched up to the full length, itserest 
til satisfied.that it has been discovered and when 
fly it remains absolutely motionless. Its colors 
so well with the* surrounding bark and branches and 
slender form is so unlike that of the plump bird which one 
expects to see that an untrained eye may easily pass over it 
without discovering it. On the ground, on dry leaves, or 
when sitting as it frequently does on an old log, it is even 
harder to make out; and were it not for its fatal habit of 
uttering the snickering noise and walking stupidly along in front 
of the hunter when closely pressed, it would be pretty sure 
to escape detection from all except the most experienced hun- 
raised. Un- 
about to 
harmonize 
its long, 
1 s. 
by the merest Tyro 
fully three fourths of the birds seen can be 
and old hands average nine 
On two occasions this autumn,I 
every bird in a flock of six without moving more than 
a few feet picking up the first bird until the last one 
was down. 
ters. As it 
easily bagged 
out of 
killed 
ten all shot sitting. 
which one feels perfectly 
however, a bird of 
flying a few yards and dropping 
windfall of thicket of bushes, 
to run, it goes with so 
.Sometimes, 
sure escapes by running after 
just out of sight-behind some 
for when a Grouse makes up its mind ^ v 
much speed that it is out of the question to try to overtake 
it. A bird that has been thoroughly alarmed often 
quarter of a mile or more before stopping. ■ It is 
takes a long swift flight like that 
I have occasionally seen an 
There was a 
1/ 
a Maine Grouse 
sachusetts bird, but 
strongly and as far. 
fly quite a? 
runs a 
seldom that 
of our Mas- 
indiyidual 
perceptible 
