forest and stream 
THE RUFFED GROUSE. 
HE woods in the older parts of our country 
possess scarcely a trait of the primeval 
forest. The oldest tree have a compara- 
ti\ely youthful appearance, and are pigmies in 
girth beside the decaying stumps of their giant 
ancestors. They are not so shagged with moss 
nor so scaled with lichens. The forest floor 
has lost its ancient carpet of ankle-deep moss 
and the intricate maze of fallen trees in every 
stage of decay, and looks clean-swept and bare. 
The tangle of undergrowth is gone, many of the 
species which composed it having quite disap¬ 
peared, as have many of the animals that flourish¬ 
ed in the perennial shade of the old woods. 
If in their season one sees and hears more 
birds among their lower interlaced branches, he 
is not likely to catch sight or sound of many of 
the denizens of the old wilderness. No startled 
deer bounds away before him; no bear shuffles 
awkwardly from his feast of mast at one’s ap¬ 
proach, nor does one’s flesh creep at the howl 
it was in the old days. On either side of the 
vanishing brown nebula the ancient mossed and 
lichened trunks rear themselves again, above it 
their lofty ramage veils the sky, beneath it lie 
the deep, noiseless cushion of moss, shrubs, and 
plants that the old wood-rangers knew and the 
moose browsed on, and the tangled trunks of 
fallen trees. You almost fancy that you hear the 
long-ago silenced voices of the woods, so vividly 
does this wild spirit for an instant conjure up 
before you a vision of the old wild world whereof 
he is a survival. 
Acquaintance with civilized man has not tamed 
him, but made him the wilder. He deigns to feed 
upon your apple tree buds and buckwheat and 
woodside clover, not as a gift, but a begrudged 
compensation for what you have taken from him, 
and gives you therefore not even the thanks of 
familiarity, and not withstanding his acquaintance 
with generations of your race he will not suffer 
you to come so near to him as he would your 
grandfather. 
Los Angeles Rifle and Revolver Club—Winners of Championship 
With Military Rifle. 
of United States 
These 
Tests 
with 
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These tests prove the quality that 
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UNITED STATES CARTRIDGE CO. 
2359 Trinity Bldg. New York City 
of the gathering wolves or the panther’s scream 
or the rustle of his stealthy footsteps. 
But as you saunter on your devious way you 
may hear a rustle of quick feet in the dry leaves 
before you, and a sharp, insistent cry, a succes¬ 
sion of short, high-pitched clucks running into 
and again out of a querulous “ker-r-r-r,”—all 
expressing warning as much as alarm. Your ears 
guide your eyes to the exact point from which the 
sounds apparently come, but if they are not keen 
and well trained, they fail to detach any animate 
form from the inanimate dun and gray of dead 
leaves and underbrush. 
With startling suddeness out of the monotony 
of lifeless color in an eddying flutter of dead 
leaves, fanned to erratic flight by his wing-beats 
a ruffed grouse bursts into view in full flight 
with the first strokes of his thundering pinions, 
and you have a .brief vision of untamed nature as 
If, when the leaves are falling, and find him in 
your barnyard, garden or outhouse, or on your 
porch do not think he has any intention or asso¬ 
ciating with you or your plebeian poultry. You can 
only wonder where he found refuge from the 
painted shower when all his world was wooded. 
If he invites your attendance at his drum solo 
it is only to fool you with the sight of an empty 
stage, for you must be as stealthy and keen-eyed 
as a lynx if you see his proud display of dis¬ 
tended ruff and wide spread of barred tail and 
accelerated beat of wings that mimic thunder, 
or see even the leafy curtain of his stage flutter 
in the wind of his swift exit. 
How the definite recognition of his motionless 
form evades you, so perfectly are his colors 
merged into those of his environment, whether it 
be in the flush greenness of summer, the painted 
hues of autumn or its later faded dun and gray, 
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Also John T. Lewis & Bros. Co., Philadelphia; 
United Lead Co., New York; Selby Smelting & 
Lead Co., San Francisco, distributors on eac.tie c'oa*t 
or in the whiteness of winter. Among one or the 
other he is but a clot of dead leaves, a knot upon 
a branch, the gray stump of a sapling protruding 
from the snow, or covered deep in the unmarked 
whiteness, he bursts from it like a mine exploded 
at your feet, leaving you agape till he has van¬ 
ished from your sight and your ears have caught 
the last flick of his wings against the dry 
branches. 
In May, his mate sits on her nest, indistinguish¬ 
able among the brown leaves and grav branches 
about herself. Later when you surprise her with 
her brood, how conspicuous she makes herself, 
fluttering and staggering along the ground, while 
her callow chicks, old in cunning though so 
