ee 

Se EE eee, 8 ee 
“often get the best of me by playing me some 
Dec. 7, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 




| GAD TRAV AND GUN 


My Friend the Partridge 
Memories of New 
England Shooting 
By S. T. Hammond 
(Continued from page 855.) 
HE life history of the ruffed grouse has 
T never been written. Many deeply in- 
teresting sketches of portions of it have 
from time to time been placed before us, but 
a comprehensive and truthful 
tion of the going and coming, the likes and 
dislikes, the resultant effects of unnatural con- 
ditions as well as a thousand and one other 
items of interest that all belong to the daily 
never descrip- 
life of this preternaturally wise and most in- 
teresting bird. 
Many years ago I took no little pride in the 
belief that I knew about all that was worth know- 
ing in relation to this bird, but as the years rolled 
on I learned—and enjoyed pleasure in the learn- 
ing—that my boasted knowledge was in truth 
insignificant; and the more I learned of the 
habits and characteristics of my wily favorite, 
the less inclined was I to make a fool of myself 
by pretension to knowledge that I knew was far 
removed from perfection. Each season for more 
than a half century I have devoted considerable 
time to the pursuit of my favorite bird, and I 
cap- 
they 
new 
dodge or trick, and so well do I know them that 
I feel sure that no matter how proficient I may 
become, their wits, sharpened by experience, will 
often cause me sorrow as I realize that I have 
again been outwitted. 
This magnificent game bird was known to the 
scientist of early days as Tetrao umbellus. The 
well known naturalist, Bonaparte, interpolated 
the subgeneric term Bonasa, making the scientific 
name Tetrao (Bonasa) umbellus. Scientists of 
later days, Nuttall, Samuels and many others, 
dropped Tetrao, and a few years ago the Ameri- 
can Ornithologists’ Union put the seal of ap- 
proval upon this and now our beautiful friend is 
known to the scientific world as Bonasa umbellus. 
Many that make no pretension to scientific knowl- 
edge know it as the ruffed grouse. Nearly every 
one in New England, as well as in portions of 
the Middle and Western States, calls it the par- 
tridge, while to others in some of the Middle 
believe myself to be fairly proficient in their 
ture; but even now, with all my experience, 
and Southern States it is known as the pheasant, 
and in some portions of those sections as moun- 
tain pheasants. In northern portions of the 
country, where the spruce partridge is found, 
our bird is called the birch partridge. In New 
Jersey I have had it pointed out to me as the 
heathcock, and several times in widely separated 
sections I have been told that it was the tippet 
grouse. I was hunting turkeys in Virginia, hav- 
ing as a guide a veritable “child of the mist,” 
who lived in a lone cabin in the mountains some 
While walking 
along a bridle path a grouse rose nearby and I 
cut it down, when the old darkey made a rush 
and seized the bird, which he held aloft in triumph 
“Fore de lawd, boss, if you 
This was the 
two miles from Ashby’s Gap. 
as he exclaimed, 
hain’t done killed a ghost bird.” 
first time that I heard this name applied to it, 
but I have since learned that in some localities 
the name is quite commonly used. I have also 
frequently heard it called the drummer as well 
as the thunder bird. I have also often heard the 
name brown grouse, and have been told several 
times in different localities that this the 
shoulder-knot partridge. 
A wise sportsman has told us that 
any other name would 
shall find no fault with either of these names, 
nor shall I quarrel with the sponsor for bestow- 
ing them, for I have enjoyed too much of sport 
in all of the cognomens 
prevail to cavil at trifles like these. 
ever, draw the line at “ruffled” grouse. 
stand this extend the 
fellowship to the man who bestows it upon my 
was 
“a rose by 
smell as sweet,” so I 
sections where these 
I must, how- 
I cannot 
misnomer, nor hand of 
very best bird. 
The naturalist Trumbull quotes from an old 
author who was writing of the partridge: “Their 
flesh is good in hectic fevers, the gall sharpens 
the sight, and the blood resists poison.” True 
for you, brother sportsman; every word is gospel 
truth, for oftentimes when the fever” 
born of ardent longing for communion with my 
“hectic 
dearly loved bird in its sylvan home has held 
me in its grasp, I have been quickly and com- 
pletely brought to my normal condition by even 
only a fleeting glimpse of my favorite bird in 
the flesh. Often the engendered by 
failure to catch a glimpse of a startled bird “sharp- 
ened” my sight and brought me into better con- 
see the the dense 
Often has the poison instilled into my 
has gall 
dition to next one through 
covert. 
mind by contamination with worldly affairs been 
completely neutralized and driven from my sys- 
tem at the sight of the blood of this beautiful 
king of the forest. 
I shall not undertake to give anything ap- 
proaching a complete description of the charac- 
teristics belonging to this bird, nor even of its 
habits, natural or acquired, for I well know that 
I have yet much to learn regarding its life his- 
tory, and I shall therefore confine myself strictly 
to such facts as have come under my own ob- 
servation during the many pleasant interviews I 
have held with these magnificent birds in different 
sections of the country, leaving all guess work 
and pedantic abstruseness for other subjects with 
which I am less familiar. 
ruffed 
Nearly all writers about the 
persist in pronouncing it the very wildest bird 
the 
almost universal view expressed for many years, 
grouse 
to be found in our country. This has been 
and so much has it been harped on that “wild 
as a partridge” has passed into a proverb. That 
the bird [ 
nature is concerned, is patent to all; but to say 
is wild, so far as living in a state of 
that it is wild in the sense that most writers be- 
lieve and endeavor to demonstrate, is to mis- 
represent this highly gifted bird. There is no 
game bird which possesses greater perceptive 
faculties and reasoning powers than this; and for 
one to state that the wisdom, born of bitter ex- 
perience, that leads it to shun one’s presence, 1s 
simply wildness, argues little for the quality of 
the knowledge so characteristic of this preter- 
naturally wise and crafty bird. When time was 
young—with me—I have, hundreds of times, 
flushed from almost under my feet large coveys 
of partridges, and many times I have seen them, 
not twenty feet distant, skulking away from my 
In re- 
the 
path with never a “wild” one in the lot. 
cent years, I have seen many instances of 
same nature in our grand old Northern forests, 
where the modern shooter is comparatively un- 
known. This conclusively proves to me that the 
ruffed grouse is not naturally wild in the sense 
that so many writers and talkers would have us 
believe, while the abundant reasons—from their 
standpoint—that this wise bird gives them for 
their belief, just as that it 
has risen to the occasion and learned the truth 
conclusively proves 

and value of that modern axiom so vital to suc- 
cess that ‘only he who hustles will get there.” 
The manner in which this knowledge has be- 
come so widely diffused among the partridges 
passes my comprehension. I can readily un- 
derstand why it is that a bird that is constantly 
shot at 
when it 
should in a short time be- 
had that 
deadly foes were seeking its destruction, but | 
that 
birds, 
hunted and 
come wary reason to believe 
cannot understand how it is young and 
that 
the 
“oldest” patriarch in the 
presumably unsophisticated have 
never been previously disturbed bv hunter, 
the 
knowledge of ways and means to outwit even 
the 
nothing that will shed any light upon this ques- 
shall the 
others to determine, whether this is an instinct 
should vie with 
most expert hunter. I know absolutely 
tion, and therefore leave matter for 
or acquired knowledge, or whether there is a 
bird the brood is 
effect that 
generally obtain when the hunter is abroad in 
language by which callow 
taught the principles of cause and 
the land, as well as the crafty tricks and dodges 
that so often succeed in convincing the would- 
be capter that his intended victim is too “wild” 
Year by 
interest 
watched, with 
the 
wisdom 
for him. year, I have 
and delight, con- 
and tru wonderful increase of 
ever-increasing 
stant ly 
that comes to even the youngest and most iso- 
lated of these birds, and as I realize the signifi 
cance of this important change in the habits 
and instincts—if I may be allowed the expres 
sion—of my favorites, there is, deep down in my 
heart, a feeling of profound joy and satisfaction 
in knowing that in spite of modern methods and 

