33 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept, i, 1906. 
who had been in Virginia, where the Ruffed 
Grouse was and still is called ‘Pheasant.’ 
“Josselyn asserts that ‘the Country hath’ no 
Pheasants, nor Woodcocks, nor Quails,’ but 
he mentions the ‘Partridge’ which, he says, ‘is 
larger than ours, white flesh, but very dry, they 
are indeed a sort of Partridges called Groose.’ 
This passage relates, of course, to the Ruffed 
Grouse. 
“Morton’s testimony on these points is so 
interesting that I give it in full. It is as fol- 
without much doubt, Ruffed Grouse, and his 
‘quailes’ unquestionably Bob-whites, which, as 
he asserts, occasionally ‘take trees also.’ 
“Nuttall, writing of the Heath Hen in 1832, 
says: ‘Along the Atlantic Coast they are still 
met with on the Grous plains of New Jersey, 
on the brushy plains of Long Island, in similar 
shrubby barrens in Westford, Connecticut, in 
the island of Martha’s Vineyard on the south 
side of Massachusetts Bay; and formerly, as 
probably in many other tracts, according to the 
can scarcely be doubted, for there is no evidence 
that living western Grouse of any kind were in¬ 
troduced info Massachusetts at so early a period. 
“From the evidence above cited we may as¬ 
sume with reasonable safety that the Heath Hen 
was found rather numerously on the ‘ancient 
bushy site’ of Boston, at the time that city was 
founded, while there are also reasons for be¬ 
lieving that it frequented many other localities, 
more or less similar in character, along the 
neighboring coast, probably ranging as far 
A MOOSE IN THE WATER. 
Photo by Charles Allen. 
lows: ‘There are a kind of Fowles which are 
commonly called Pheisants, but whether they be 
pheysants or no, I will not take upon mee, to 
determine. They are in forme like our pheisant 
henne of England. Both the male and the 
female are alike; but they are rough footed, and 
have stareing fethers about the head and neck, 
the body is as bigg as the pheysant henne of 
England; and are excellent white flesh, and deli¬ 
cate white meate, yet we seldome bestowe a 
shoote at them. 
“Partridges, there are much, like our Par- 
A MOOSE IN THE WATER. 
information which I have received from Lieut. 
Governor Winthrop, they were so common on 
the ancient bushy site of the city of Boston, 
that laboring people or servants stipulated with, 
their employers not to have the Heath-Hen 
brought to table oftener than a few times in the 
week!’ The final statement in the above pas¬ 
sage has a familiar sound, for with the substi¬ 
tution of ‘salmon’ or ‘shad’ for Heath-Hen’ it 
appears in the early annals of several New Eng¬ 
land towns. If ‘laboring people’ and ‘servants’ 
were really ever surfeited with the flesh of 
northward as Cape Ann. Apparently it was ex¬ 
terminated nearly everywhere by the English 
colonists not long after this coast region be¬ 
came generally settled, and perhaps before 1650. 
Mrs. Cabot’s testimony indicates, however, that 
it had not wholly disappeared from Cape Cod, 
nor even from the immediate neighborhood of 
Boston, at the beginning of the past century. 
On the island of Martha’s Vineyard it has con¬ 
tinued to exist in limited and varying numbers 
down to the present day.” 
A bird which has not been taken in the Cam- 
Photo by Charles Allen. 
A MOOSE IN THE WATER. 
Photo by Charles Allen. 
A MOOSE IN THE WATER. 
Photo by Charles Allen. 
tridges of England, they are of the same plumes, 
but bigger in body. They have not the sign of 
the horseshoe on the brest as the Partridges of 
England; nor are they colored about the heads 
as those are; they sit on the trees. For I have 
seen 40. in one tree at a time; yet at night they 
fall on the ground, and sit untill morning so to¬ 
gether; and are dainty flesh. 
“There are quails also, but bigger than the 
quailes in England. They take trees also: for 
I have numbered 60. upon a tree at a time. The 
cocks doe call at the time of the yeare, but with 
a different note from the cock quailes of Eng¬ 
land.’ 
“Despite what Morton says to the effect that 
its flesh was white, I am inclined to believe that 
his ‘pheisant’ must have been the ‘Heathcocke’ 
of Wood, which, as I have already stated, was 
almost certainly the Heath Hen of later authors. 
The ‘Partridges’ mentioned by Morton were, 
Heath Hens killed on the hills now occupied by 
the city of Boston, the birds must have also 
visited the Cambridge shores of the Back Bay. 
“I have been permitted to quote the following 
interesting passage from ‘Notes of conversations 
with Eliza Cabot, written down by her son, J. 
E. C(abot),’ and printed for private circulation 
in 1904: ‘I recollect the Western prairie grouse 
in this part of the country. I saw one once in 
Newton; and once, after I was married, your 
father went down to the Cape, fishing, and in 
the woods there I saw a grouse very near me, 
and saw him puff up that orange they have on 
the side of the neck.’ Eliza Cabot was born 
on April 17, 1797, and married about 1811. Her 
grand daughter, Mrs. Charles Almy, thinks it 
probable that she saw the Grouse in Newton 
about the beginning of the nineteenth century, 
and the one on ‘the Cape’ (Cape Cod. no doubt) 
about 1812. That both birds were Heath Hens 
bridge region, but of whose occurrence there 
seems some evidence, is the little black rail. The 
Florida gallinule breeds there. Certain rare 
birds recorded are the great gray owl, hawk owl, 
the Canada jay, turkey buzzard and black 
vulture. 
The bird students who fail to read Mr. 
Brewster’s “Birds of the Cambridge Region” 
will miss a rare treat. 
Bugs that Bite Hard. 
Stamford, Conn., Aug. 21 .— This morning I 
set some Italians at work cleaning out brush. 
The foreman came in soon, and said, “Verra 
badda place work. Bugs bite so hard.” I could 
not imagine what Connecticut bug would put 
Italians on the run. So I got out the collecting 
case and went out to get specimens. It was a 
nest of yellowjackets. Robert T. Morris. 
