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habits. But even with a good dog in a country where the ruffled grouse 
is plentiful it takes a good snap shot to fill a game bag as a result of a 
hard day’s work. 
This bird seldom goes far out into the open. He prefers the thick 
woods, the scrub oak thickets and the alder swamps with a tangled bot- 
tom of briar and grass. He likes the hilly country, and cares little for 
snow. The only kind of weather that gives him trouble is that kind 
that forms a coating of ice over the bushes, preventing him from getting 
a meal of buds. 
The Ruffed Grouse. 
There are comparatively few ruffled grouse in Illinois because there 
is very little territory in the State that suits his method. What few we 
have are amply protected by law. To attempt anything in the way of 
trying to increase the number of these birds in this State would be an 
expensive piece of folly. He is a splendid bird, to be sure, but all that 
can be done to prevent his extinction is to enforce the protective meas- 
ures already on our statutes. 
