Forest and Stream 


Copyright, 1906, by Forest and Stream Publishing Co. 


Terms, $3 a Year. 10 Cts. a Copy. l 
Six Months, $1.50. j 

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY «s, 1906. ! 


THE RUFFED GROUSE’S NEST. 
Att through the winter the grouse have lived 
in the deep swamp, or the dense alder runs, shel- 
tered from the fierce winds that sweep the hill- 
sides and the open fields. Here they have gleaned 
a livelihood—sufficient if scanty—from the berries 
that still cling to the vines, from the green leaves 
of low-growing plants near the wet, warm spring 
holes, from the nuts and rootlets that they 
scratch up on warm bare hillsides, and from the 
buds of birch and alder. 
After storms their firm footprints may often 
be seen in the new-fallen snow, and when the 
weather is damp and lowering, early in the after- 
noon they take refuge among the branches of 
spruce or cedar, where they are safe from prowl- 
ing fox, and protected from rain or damp. Often 
in the coldest weather of January and February 
the woodland wanderer may startle three or four 
of the birds from their warm resting place on 
some sheltered southern slope. 
But when the miider days of March have come, 
and the snow disappears, and the ice leaves the 
brooks, and the frost works out of the swamp, 
we may still sometimes find the grouse by twos 
and threes, smooth of plumage and less shy than 
in autumn, preparing for the nesting season. 
The ruffed grouse—partridge of New England 
and pheasant of the Southern and Middle States 
—is an early breeder, Not so early, of course, as 
the woodcock, whose eggs are often laid by the 
middle of March, but usually the ruffed grouse 
has her complement of eggs completed, and is 
sitting before the middle of May, in other words 
long before the leaves have come out, just about 
the time when many of our resident birds reach 
here from the South, about the time when the 
warbler migration is at its height. More than 
once while watching the migrating hosts in spring 
have we walked so close to a ruffed grouse’s nest 
as to frighten the old one off and send her hurt- 
ling away through the tree trunks while the rush 
of air from her strong wing strokes threw back 
over the nest some of the dry leaves by which it 
was surrounded, and half concealed the eggs. Nor 
is this date unusual. Instead, there are records 
for central New York which show that ruffed 
grouse eggs have been found there in the very 
first days of April. 
If it is early June when the ruffed grouse chicks 
are afoot, they have, over much of the country, 
four or five months in which to acquire wisdom 
and vigor and to become strong and hardy for 
the autumnal season of pursuit. 
Various are the situations in which the nest is 
found; sometimes admirably concealed, at others 
in plain sight if one does but know how to see it. 
It may be hidden under a fallen log, on a 
sharply sloping side hill surrounded by protective 
undergrowth, at the foot of a stout tree in a great 
clump of cedars, or again at the foot of a tree 
growing just within a fence upon the edge of a 
mowing lot, and sixty or seventy yards from the 
nearest cover. 
Wherever it may be, the partridge’s nest is hard 
to find and hard to see after it has been found. 
Usually it is discovered by blundering accident, 
some one walking near to the sitting bird and 
frightening her into the air and then discovering 
the nest. After it has been found, one may visit 
it—but not teo frequently—and may gradually ac- 
custom the mother bird to his presence; yet often 
when approaching the nest and looking precisely 
where one knows it is, it may for a long time be 
very difficult to see. In the coloring which na- 
ture has given the ruffed grouse she has cared well 
for this child of hers. The streaks and bars on 
the bird’s head, its colors of brown and buff and 
black blend and mingle so harmoniously with the 
grass, the flowers, the leaves and the twigs which 
form her surrounding and her background, that it 
is almost impossible to detect the bird. 
There are sections of our country where ruffed 
grouse are still so plenty that each year a few 
nests are found and a few people are fortunate 
enough to succeed in photographing them. 
GO HUNTING WITHOUT A GUN. 
CLEANED, oiled and laid away in a dry place is 
the tool that we have carried so many days 
through sunshine and through storm, in cold and 
heat, in joy and sorrow; but the season has just 
opened for hunting without a gun. Armed with 
opera glass, note book, botanical case, trowel, in- 
sect net, or fishing rod, men and women and boys 
and girls may now start out to witness the 
changes which sprine is so swiftly scattering over 
the land. 
Birds are coming on from the south. Turtles 
are sunning themseives on stones and logs in the 
ponds or by the brook side. Beautiful and grace- 
ful snakes have come forth from their winter 
hiding places and are enjoying the genial warmth 
of the strengthening sun. Little hylas call musi- 
cally from the marsh land, and the deep voice of 
the bullfrog will soon be heard from the ponds. 
Insects cluster about the newly-opened flowers 
and are followed thither by the birds, while trees 
and shrub and lew-growing plants are all sending 
forth leaves or the flowers that precede the leaves. 
In some places the red blooms of the soft maple 
have already fallen away. Peach trees are robed 
in pink, and cherry trees in white. In the deep 
recesses of the swamp the tiny white violet 
blooms thick, while the jack-in-the-pulpit sends 
up sturdy stalks, late anemones nod on the hill- 
sides, and dog-tooth violets on the edge of the 
swamp rival the gold of the water cowslip at the 
brook’s edge. 
Truly, at this season of the year no one needs 
a gun for his enjoyment. If one should ask for 
more than he has he would like more eyes to see 
with, more ears to hear with, more hands to bring 
together the beautiful things seen. Yet, it is a 
mistake to tear down and gather together all 
these beautiful things, which in their place are 
so lovely, but when removed from it are so per- 
VOL. LXVI.—No. 18. 
1 No. 346 Broadway, New York. 
ishable and so soon to be thrown away, The 
thoughtless gratification of the desire to possess 
some beautiful thing is to be deplored. Beautiful 
it is in its proper place, but removed from that 
place, unless carefully prepared and used as a 
specimen, too soon it becomes unlovely and alto- 
gether worthless. 
Of those who have pictured the joys of hunt- 
ing without a gun we know of none the charm 
of whose writing equals that of Rowland E. 
Robinson, whose book bearing this title was 
printed last year. While it may be that many 
men have seen in the woods as much as Robin- 
son saw, there have been few—it might be al- 
most be said there have been none—who had the 
power to describe what they saw in a way so 
charming, so lucid and with so much sympathy. 
He makes us see again what we have seen before, 
and thrill again with the feelings of long ago. 
RIVERS, OF (PICKLE: 
For many years the angler has grumbled over 
the destruction of game fish caused by the pollu- 
tion of our streams. By a portion of the public 
this is considered the selfish complaining of 
sportsmen whose recreations are thereby limited. 
The public is not aware that, with the game fish, 
our commercial fisheries are being destroyed, that 
many millions of dollars are thereby lost commer- 
cially, and that the public is being deprived of 
thousands of tons of toothsome and _ nour- 
ishing food, so that the whole cost of living 
is measurably increased by this treatment of 
the streams, 
Time was when the streams of New England 
and many of those of New York abounded with 
salmon. Time was when the sturgeon fishery and 
sturgeon oil of the Hudson River were important 
and valuable, commercially; when “Albany beet” 
was in demand, and when sturgeon eggs formed 
an important article of export to Russia. Still 
later, in-the boyhood of men yet young, the shad 
fishery in the Connecticut and Housatonic and the 
Hudson were worth millions of dollars, and dur- 
ing the months of May and early June most deli- 
cious shad were to be had for a trifling price. 
Salmon, sturgeon and shad in New England and 
New York have almost disappeared. Of recent 
years millions of shad fry have been distributed 
in the upper waters of the Hudson River, but the 
shad in that stream become less and less. In lieu 
of them, stale fish from Southern—and unpolluted 
—waters alone are purchasable. 
Even the fishermen do not understand the con- 
ditions. If they did, there would be—in New 
York State, at least—a revolution in public opin- 
ion, and the factories and cities which now 
befoul the Hudson would be so regulated by law 
that this nuisance would cease, that purity would 
be restored to the waters, and that restocking 
might renew the food fish which the greed of one 
class and the supineness of another have now 
practically destroyed, 
