UPLAND SHOOTING. 
245 
The Ruffed Grouse is a singularly handsome bird, whether 
on the ground or on the wing; looking, from the looseness and 
downy habit of his feathers, considerably larger than he really 
is. He rises with a very loud whirring of his wings—which 
Mr. Audubon asserts so positively, that I must suppose so accu¬ 
rate an observer to be surely correct, to be uttered merely at 
moments of alarm and sudden trepidation, the bird when not 
forced to take wing, rising noiselessly—and gets under way 
with extreme rapidity. In general, this bird does not rise much 
higher than a man’s head, and then flies very straight, and very 
swiftly, at an even elevation for several hundred yards; after 
which it will set both its wings, and sail dead before the wind 
with immense velocity. To kill the Ruffed Grouse, when thus 
skating down-wind, as it crosses you, having been flushed at a 
distance, it is necessary to allow a considerable space for the 
swiftness of its motion; and I should fire not less than two feet 
in front of one, at thirty-five or forty yards’ distance. 
Going directly away from the gun, the Ruffed Grouse, like 
the Quail, is an awkward bird to kill, from the fact, that they 
both fly with the body so nearly level, that the rump and hard 
bones of the back receive the shot; and in this part of the body 
they will have to be struck very heavily, before they will fall. 
It is a good plan in this position to shoot a little low, as you are 
far more apt to over than to under-shoot them. 
A cross shot, if not too far off, is easily killed; as the bird 
affords a fair mark, and will not carry off nearly so much shot 
as the Quail, if struck well forward. 
Beginners are apt to shoot behind all their cross shots, and 
perhaps especially so at this bird, his long tail and loose feathers 
tending to deceive them. 
It i3 a matter of exceeding surprise to me, that this bird has 
not been naturalized in Great Britain. Its extreme hardihood 
would render its success certain ; and in every part of the coun¬ 
try, but in the woodland and forest counties especially, Dorset 
shire, Devonshire, parts of Essex, the New Forest, throughout 
Wales, and in many districts of the North Country, and Scot- 
