3/2 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[March 7, 1908. 
The Ruffed Grouse Scarcity. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
The enemies of the ruffed grouse are many, 
and first of all stands man; then come the fox, 
weasel, mink, hawk, crow, owl and last, but 
not least, disease. I have read much of late in 
Forest and Stream about the great scarcity of 
this glorious bird, of intelligence in many ways 
not inferior to its greatest enemy—man. How¬ 
ever, I do not propose to go over the literature 
of the subject, but to call the attention of hun¬ 
ters to the possibility of an epidemic disease— 
perhaps peculiar to the grouse—which may be 
one of the many causes for the present scarcity 
in certain localities. 
If your readers will read the report on the 
blackhead disease of turkeys, published by the 
Rhode Island Agricultural College in Novem¬ 
ber, 1907, they will find a rather exhaustive re¬ 
port of the cause of the disease as well as the 
difficulties to be met with in tracing epidemic 
disease to its cause. In the blackhead disease 
of turkeys—a most destructive form—a specific 
parasite was found which especially affected the 
caecum and liver, causing the death of most 
young turkeys affected as well as some old ones. 
It is doubtful if this special microbe is the 
cause of disease in grouse, but its life history 
may give suggestions that may lead to further 
investigation among birds and wild animals for 
the sudden scarcity of one kind of bird, fish 01- 
animal in some years or localities while none 
exists in other. 
A brief summary of this turkey disease may 
help your correspondents to observe more closely 
the habits of the grouse, especially during the 
nesting, hatching and rearing of the young. In 
turkeys this disease appeared in twelve to 
twenty-four days after exposure to the infection, 
although some escaped for months. For in¬ 
stance. some of the young were purposely fed 
with “infected food’’ and they all died in the 
first month. Now, if I remember, some of your 
correspondents stated that there were many 
young grouse seen about the time of hatching, 
but after a while none or scarcely any were 
seen in their usual covers. This would indicate 
death from disease rather than by hawks, crows, 
foxes, etc. 
Again it was noticed that turkeys so diseased 
perished if exposed to cold and wet. This might 
account for the theory that a cold or wet time, 
after hatching, affected the young grouse disas¬ 
trously. Strange as it may seem the same para¬ 
site so destructive to turkeys seems to have little 
effect on the barnyard fowls; in fact, the latter 
seem to be carriers of the germ and thus be¬ 
come a fruitful source of the spread of the 
disease through their droppings. 
Old Doctor. 
Skunk Tales. 
Milhurst, N. J., Feb. 20.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: The skunk articles in Forest and 
Stream call to my mind a scrape that I once 
had a trifle to do with away back in the long 
ago. It was to us a most laughable affair, but 
not so to many others. And here is the account 
of it: 
One Sunday morning in summer I took a 
stroll in the woods in the company of four other 
lads of about my own age. There was also with 
us young Steve Barrett, a jolly chap, fond of 
his “budge,” and when loaded he was ready for 
anything, and as it happened on that day he was 
intoxicated. 
As we were strolling about we came across a 
big skunk routing among the leaves at the foot 
of a tree. We called Steve, who was some dis¬ 
tance away. He came up and stood for a 
moment regarding the skunk in a befuddled, 
comical way, then he told us that if we would 
give him fifty cents he would go up and give 
the varmint a good kick. To have some sport 
we all chipped in, raised the amount, and gave 
it to him. 
Steve slowly pocketed the cash, and although 
dressed in his Sunday’s best, he deliberately 
walked up to the skunk and gave it a vigorous 
kick, sending it sprawling against the trunk of 
the tree. 
Anyone who has ever had much to do with a 
big, healthy skunk at short range knows just 
what happened. After Steve had got over his 
surprise and gathered his few wits together he 
said that he was then going to meeting. Of 
course we all dared him to do it. Not to be 
dared he started off for the church in the out¬ 
skirts of a small village about half a mile dis¬ 
tant, the rest of us following in his wake, but 
at a safe distance. 
The day was hot and the scent terrific. One 
could have almost cut it with a knife. The 
church that Steve headed for was a small one 
having two doors opening upon the street and 
the windows on each side set very low. It was 
nearly noon, and the services in full blast. We 
kept well in the background, but where we could 
see the “circus” which we were quite sure would 
show up should he take it into his noddle to go 
inside the church. 
We had not long to wait, for he marched 
boldly in, and in less than a minute it sounded 
as if bedlam itself had broken loose inside. 
Then out of the open windows and doors rushed 
the crowd, pell mell, men, women, children, 
preacher and all, leaving Steve, as we after¬ 
ward heard, sole occupant of the building. 
Soon he was collared by some courageous and 
muscular members and hustled out with more 
vim than politeness. 
The consequence was he was arrested for 
malicious mischief and for disturbing the meet¬ 
ing, and would have had to spend several months 
in jail had it not been for the pleading of my 
uncle, a lawyer of ability, who assisted Steve to 
get out of the scrape. As it was Steve had to 
pay a heavy fine besides getting an unmerciful 
tongue-lashing from the judge. 
And the rest of us came precious near getting 
into hot water, too, by being accessories, so the 
judge said, but by my uncle’s good management 
we barely got clear of legal proceedings. What 
kind of home treatment the other boys got I 
never fully learned, but as for me, I got one 
of the hardest lickings I ever had from that old 
uncle of mine. A. L. L. 
Jacksonville, Fla., Feb. 22.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: I have read with much interest the 
views of correspondents concerning skunks and 
rattlesnakes. Such discussions are instructive 
and entertaining, and doubtless other readers of 
Forest and Stream besides myself have been 
benefited by these articles. 
I never tried to carry a live skunk about by 
the tail, nor did I ever run across any one else 
carrying one around in this manner, but that is 
no reason why it cannot be done, and I am will¬ 
ing to take the other fellow’s word for it. 
One afternoon some years ago I was one of a. 
group sitting on the porch of a country store 
down the state. A lively political discussion was 
under way, when the speaker broke off in the 
middle of a sentence and there was a general 
wrinkling up of noses, the speaker remarking 
that some one had evidently stirred up a polecat. 
The scent became stronger and stronger, and 
around the corner of the building came a little 
Dutchman almost on the run. As he headed for 
the porch steps every one jumped up and 
“shooed” him back,, the storekeeper coming out 
on the porch and warning him not to come in. 
That man was the center of the scent of three 
skunks, and he did not know just what to do 
with it all, and was so excited he could not stand 
still. He was over from the old country but a 
short while and talked very brokenly, but as he 
stood out in the road first on one foot and then 
the other, we gathered from his broken English 
and eloquent gestures that while coming along 
the road he saw “three cats dey call de pole,” 
sitting side by side on the rail fence. He found 
a good stout club and started in to kill the lot, 
and he gave us to understand he stayed in the 
fight till the last one was laid out. No one was 
inclined to dispute him, even though he was not 
carrying his trophies around by the tail. The 
scent was all the proof we required, and he had 
that. 
That man still lives in that section, and he 
probably still holds the record as a single-handed 
polecat fighter. G. A. I. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
As a contribution to the skunk discussion our 
inimitable “Uncle Dick’s” remark of years since 
may apply: “I was told that if you held up a 
skunk by the tail it could not fire. I tried it, 
and I know it is not true.” Rabid skunks lose 
the power of secretion of the fluid. 
Wm. Wade. 
Canada Lynx in Ulster County. 
The Fiction. 
Middletown, N. Y., Feb. 14.—John Whipple, 
of Frost Valley, Sullivan county, while working 
in the woods yesterday was attacked by a large 
Canada lynx. Whipple had just felled a tree, 
when the animal sprang upon him, knocking him 
down. Still clinging to his axe, Whipple fought 
the lynx until he finally killed it. The Canada 
lynx is rarely found in this part of the country. 
— N. V. Sun. 
The Fact. 
Frost Valley, Ulster Co., N. Y., Feb. 28.— 
Editor Forest and Stream: I have been trapping 
for foxes and other game this winter. On or 
about Jan. 27, I went to look at my traps and 
found a large Canada lynx in one of them. 
I did not want to shoot him on account of 
spoiling the hide, and so killed him with a club. 
On the 26th inst. I captured in one of my 
traps a last year’s kitten Canada lynx, a very 
nice one, a shade darker than the old one I cap¬ 
tured in January. John H. Whipple. 
