UPLAND SHOOTING. 
61 
had caught an old Hen-Grouse in a trap, and being obliged to keep 
her in a large cage, she struck and abused the rest of the poul¬ 
try, he remarked that she never drank, and that she even avoided 
that quarter of the cage where the cup containing the water was 
placed. Happening one day to let some water fall on the cage, it 
trickled down in drops along the bars, which the bird no sooner 
observed than she eagerly picked them off, drop by drop, with 
a dexterity that showed she had been habituated to this mode 
of quenching her thirst, and probably to this mode only, in those 
dry and barren tracts, where, except the drops of dew and 
drops of rain, water is very rarely to be met with. For the 
space of a week he watched her closely, to discover whether 
she still refused to drink; but, though she was constantly fed 
on Indian corn, the cup and water still remained untouched 
and untasted. Yet, no sooner did he again sprinkle water on 
the bars of the cage, than she eagerly and rapidly picked them 
off, as before. The last and probably the strongest inducement 
to their preferring these places, is the small acorn of the shrub- 
oak, the strawberries, huckleberries and partridge-berries, with 
which they abound, and which constitute the principal part of 
the food of these birds. These brushy thickets also afford them 
excellent shelter, being almost impenetrable to dogs or birds of 
prey. In all those places where they inhabit, they are, in the 
strictest sense of the word, resident; having their particular haunts 
and places of rendezvous—as described in the preceding ac¬ 
count—to which they are strongly attached. Yet they have 
been known to abandon an entire tract of such country, when, 
from whatever cause it might proceed, it became again covered 
with forest. A few miles south of the town of York, in Penn¬ 
sylvania, commences an extent of country fairly of the charac¬ 
ter described, now chiefly covered with wood, but still retaining 
the name of Barrens. In the recollection of an old man, born 
in that part of the country, this tract abounded with Grouse. 
The timber growing up, in progress of years, these birds totally 
disappeared, and for a long period of time he had seen none of 
them, until, migrating with his family to Kentucky, on entering 
