nearby when she returned. She did 
precisely as recounted above, except 
that she was less nervous about it. 
The youngsters peeped back and forth 
in answer to her and it was amusing 
indeed to note how each little peep came 
nearer and nearer to her until she 
hopped down and led them away. By 
early August the young are almost as 
large as the hen but seem to be some- 
what lacking in cunning. I believe that 
hawks capture numbers of them dur- 
ing this period. 
During the later summer the old 
drummers seek out shady nooks in the 
woods and there remain until after the 
moult. I have in mind one grouse that 
has retired to the shade of a little clump 
of balsam firs for at least two sum- 
mers. Go to this thicket any day during 
the moulting season and he was inva- 
riably in sight of it. 
LL through the summer months, 
grouse, old and young, enjoy and 
make great use of dust baths, located 
very often in the dirt clinging to the 
roots of a fallen tree. At about the 
time the new feathers appear, a fringe 
of short, horny spikes grow out of the 
edges of each toe. These continue to 
grow until by snowfall they are per- 
haps a quarter of an inch long, and 
are of use to the grouse as snow-shoes. 
And when I come to this point in 
the fascinating life history of the 
ruffed grouse I am forced to pause. 
How marvelous all this is! Why 
should these toe fringes begin to grow 
out in late August? and, for that mat- 
ter, why should they grow at all? How 
may we account for this, or for any of 
the multitude of interesting pheno- 
mena of the wild? In the same locality 
where I have known the ruffed grouse, 
lives the varying hare, and many is 
the time I have marvelled at its trans- 
formation from the winter pelage to 
that of summer and from the summer 
to that of winter, the change occurring 
in reverse order. In the fall the white- 
ness creeps upward, the back of the 
hare being the last to change; in the 
spring the hind lower portions are the 
last to become brown. These two—the 
grouse and the hare—have ever set my 
mind to pondering. Oh, of course, we 
can say “evolution.” But evolution is 
merely a process, and what I have in 
mind just now is that unknown power 
behind. There is something about these 
phenomena that makes one think, gives 
him a sense of his own littleness, leaves 
him awed. There are sermons in them. 
And that it is, I think, which makes it 
all seem so worth while when one is 
out in the forest. He is there seeing 
and FEELING sermons all day through 
—he is there with God! It is great to 
go into that temple of the out-of-doors, 
where the ruffed grouse drums and all 
nature sings! It is all so finely attuned 
Page 621 
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Pattern No. Shot in Per Cent 
No. 30-inch circle of Total 
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JAN 151 80 
3 161 85 
4 163 86 
5 162 85 
6 167 88 
7 167 88 
8 154 82 
9 152 80 
10 168 89 
11 155 82 
12 147 78 
Average of 12 patterns, 84.4%.—Lowest pattern, 78% 
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