
nually throughout the country would 
enable the game wardens to provide for 
but a few months of the same adequate 
protection against vermin and poachers 
which the English “shooting”? enjoys 
the year around. 
Under certain circumstances, to the 
list of the natural enemies of the 
grouse, the grouse himself must be 
added. This sounds like a statement 
which will require some proving and I 
intend to demonstrate herewith. In the 
New England States, where the coun- 
try is fairly settled, we may assume 
that the grouse’s fight for self-preser- 
Nailing ’em at the covert’s edge. 
580 

vation is carried on against the heavi- 
est odds which the bird encounters any- 
where. Sportsmen who hunt in this 
area have observed a growing tendency 
among the birds to scatter; in some de- 
gree they seem to forsake their old 
habits of flock sociability. 
OU may recall, too, that in the last 
few seasons, you have encountered 
wide woodland areas which are appar- 
ently unused by the birds, though food, 
water and shelter are as abundant 
there as elsewhere. In nine cases out 
of ten a careful search of these locali- 
ties will produce 
one bird—and a 
very wary speci- 
men he is, too. If 
shot and examined 
you will find that 
the solitary lord of 
three or four acres 
of woodland is a 
male bird, and an 
old one. Rarely 
will you find a hen 
bird anywhere 
near, and I have 
never seen a 
younger bird of 
either sex close 
enough by to indi- 
cate that it was 
acting as a com- 
panion for the old 
fellow. The atra- 
bilious ancient is 
alone in his bache- 
lor glory for the 
sufficient reason 
that his manners 
and morals are not 
of a quality which 
recommend him as 
a next-door neigh- 
\ 
bor in a decent, industrios grouse 
community. Upon this vigorous but 
crabbed grousinality age has not exer- 
cised a mellowing and benevolent in- 
fluence. When respectable young cou- 
ples wander upon his domain he whips 
the males and harries the hens in ap- 
proved barbaric style until the visitors 
are glad enough to go on to a better 
location. 
i 
GE has rendered him sterile; in- 
stead of assisting in the produc- 
tion of fertile eggs he actually inter- 
feres in this important function by his 
continued annoyance of the younger 
birds. At this stage the old cock grouse 
has actually become an_ influence 
against the increase of his own kind. 
He is a sad nuisance, and a very diffi- 
cult one to abate. Age has given him 
wisdom, if not respectable manners, 
and he knows—the fruit of many a 
close squeak—about all that he needs 
to know concerning the tactics of his 
enemies. His very isolation is a sort 
of safeguard, for the foxes, hawks, 
owls, and weasels prefer to hunt where 
the grouse population is more densely 
maintained. 
In England the red grouse behaves 
along very similar lines of conduct, but 
his malignant influence as well as his 
whereabouts is more generally known. 
After the season’s grouse drives are 
concluded the head keeper on an En- 
glish shoot plans a special campaign 
against the old male birds which have— 
rely upon their sophistication—escaped 
the guns and taken defiant refuge in 
the “tops.” Here the keeper finds them 
and hunts them down as relentlessly 
with dog and gun as he would any 
other sort of vermin which threatened 
his next year’s crop of birds. No such 
systematic campaign is possible on the 
ruffed grouse grounds of America, but 
an open season of reasonable length 
kills off many birds which, if not at 
this stage of punitive sterility, would 
certainly pass into it before another 
season had arrived. This, coupled with 
the fact that the hunter also extermi- 
nates a considerable quantity of other 
vermin while on his shooting trips, is 
strong argument against the ten-year- 
long closed season idea. The writer 
has shot dozens of these feathered sa- 
tyrs, and in localities where he was 
enabled to keep the ground under ob- 
servation there has always been a no- 
ticeable movement among the younger 
stock to occupy the baronial acres when 
they are freed from tyranny by the 
swish of a charge of chilled sevens. 
ROUSE shooters often complain 
that the birds no longer lie well 
for their dogs and there is manifest a 
considerable agitation among sportsmen | 
b 
