Ruffed grouse

“ The range of the Ruffed Grouse is eastern United States, south to North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas. They hatch in April, the young immediately leaving the nest with the mother. When they hear the mother’s warning note the little ones dive under leaves and bushes, while she leads the pursuer off in an opposite direction. Building the nest and sitting upon the eggs constitute the duties of the female, the males during this interesting season keeping separate, not rejoining their mates until the young are hatched, when they begin to roam as a family. ”

“ They were not ruffed grouse, but a kindred kind, new to Rolf. As he gazed at the perchers, he saw Quonab rise gently, go to nearest willow and cut a long slender rod at least two feet long; on the top of this he made a short noose of cord. Then he went cautiously under the watching grouse, the spruce partridges, and reaching up slipped the noose over the neck of the first one; a sharp jerk then tightened noose, and brought the grouse tumbling out of the tree while its companions merely clucked their puzzlement, made no effort to escape.
A short, sharp blow put the captive out of pain. ”

“ Though too wild and shy, he said, to be domesticated, there is no reason why it might not live and thrive in any pine lands where the Ruffed Grouse is found. Since the mountain passes are becoming threaded with railroads, and miners, herders, and other settlers are scattering through the country, it will be far easier than it has been to secure and transport live birds or their eggs, and it is to be hoped the experiment will be tried. ”

“ The stupid blunder of calling the Ruffed Grouse, Pheasant, and Partridge, in the South and East, is a totally different kind of misnomer; as that bird bears no resemblance, however distant, to either of the two species, and has a very good English name of his own, videlicet, “Ruffed or Tippeted Grouse,” by which alone he is known to men of brains or of sportsmanship. With regard to our Quail, it is different, as he has no distinctive English name of his own; but is, even by naturalists, indiscriminately known as Quail and Partridge. ”

“ The land on the east side of the lake had been burnt over, and was now mostly grown up with wild cherry and red raspberry-bushes. Ruffed grouse were found here in great numbers. The Canada grouse was also common. I shot eight of the latter in less than an hour on one occasion; the eighth one, which was an old male, was killed with smooth pebble stones, my shot having run short. The wounded bird ran under a pile of brush, like a frightened hen. Thrusting a forked stick down through the interstices I soon stopped his breathing. Wild pigeons were quite numerous also. ”

“ In the dense woods it was exceedingly difficult to detect. During May, near the coast, and till August, on the mountains, the low tooting of this Grouse was heard everywhere, sounding something like the cooing of a Pigeon, but in the same deep tone as the drumming of the Ruffed Grouse. Dr. Cooper also mentions its remarkable powers of ventriloquism, so that while the bird may be sitting on a tree directly over your head the sound seems to come from places quite remote.
Dr. Woodhouse states that the Dusky Grouse is found among the mountains about Santa Fé, in New Mexico. ”

“ Only the most practiced eye can detect the partridge (ruffed grouse) when she sits or stands in full view upon the ground in the woods. How well she [262] plays her part, rarely moving, till she suddenly bursts up before you, and is gone in a twinkling! How well her young are disciplined always to take their cue from her! Not one will stir till she gives the signal.
One day in my walk, as I paused on the side of a steep hill in the edge of the woods, my eye chanced to fall upon a partridge, sitting upon the leaves beside a stump scarcely three paces from me. "Can she have a nest there?" ”

“ Usually there are hen grouse nearby who sneak up through the leaves to watch his performance. He takes them all if he can find them, for the grouse cock prefers a harem; and they go about in a flock together. Day after day the drummer returns to his favorite log, until the warm weather comes on.
Sportsmen often speak of shooting pheasants, when in reality they mean grouse; for there are no native pheasants in the United States, the nearest approach being, strangely enough, our wild turkey. Often the ruffed grouse is spoken of as a partridge—and where that is so Bob White is called a quail. ”

“ There is no tree so fit to bear loving gifts to all the world.
The spruce partridge, as he is commonly called up here, the Canada grouse (Dendragapus canadensis) of the scientists, is a bird that I find very common and amazingly unafraid under the spruce and fir in these northern woods. He is a smaller, grayer, darker bird than the ruffed grouse which is the familiar bird of our home woods. Up here they call the latter “birch partridge,” because he feeds on birch buds,{36} while the spruce partridge feeds on the tips of the spruce. The birch partridge is more wary. ”

“ The same is true of the real Partridge; although the Quail of this continent would seem to be its equivalent; being as it were a connecting link between the European Quail, and the Partridge of Europe.
The Ruffed Grouse ranges over a very wide portion of the United States and British provinces, from the 51st degree of north latitude to the Atlantic sea-board, although it is much more scarce in the Southern States than in the midland and northern regions. It is remarkable also that it varies exceedingly in color ”

“ DUSKY GROUSE—Family Tetraonidæ.
297. Dendragapus obscurus. 20 inches.
Plumage gray, white and black; darkest on the back and tail, which is margined with a light gray. Female smaller, browner and more barred above. Like the Ruffed Grouse, during the mating season, the males of this species strut with tail fully spread over the back, and head thrown back until it nearly touches the tail.
Nest.—They build their nests under fallen trees or at the base of standing ones. They lay from six to ten eggs of a buff color, spotted and blotched with shades of brown (2.00 × 1.40) . ”

“ They will never desert high ground for low ground merely on account of a heavy fall of snow, provided that there is sufficient wind to keep the exposed ridges clear, and thus give access to the heather; and even if the whole Grouse in
snow moor should be covered they will burrow in the soft snow to reach the heather underneath. It is quite common to come upon birds in holes a foot or two under the loose snow. It is only when the snow has become covered with a hard, icy crust that the Grouse begin to feel the pinch of hunger. ”

“ The sedentary red grouse nests on the moors, often less than 1000 feet above the sea, but "when snow-bright the moor expands" it feeds and resides in the cultivated valley, and as shown by the committee appointed to study grouse disease, not infrequently migrates from range to range across wide valleys. ”

“ This is principally due to two causes,—the larger proportion of bent-grass and rushes to heather, which is the food of grouse; and the cold hail and rain which often occur just at the time the grouse are hatching. There is one compensation, viz., the grouse disease does not appear so frequently, nor wreak such wholesale destruction, on Gairloch moors as on other better stocked grounds elsewhere. In many years nearly all the first nests produce no young birds, so that by the Twelfth "cheepers" are still abundant, and it is far pleasanter to defer grouse shooting until a fortnight later. ”

“ As some readers may be aware, the heather is systematically fired, usually in spring, so that a supply of tender shoots from the resprouting ling may be furnished as food for the Grouse. Great judgment and care are required, or vast tracts of cover may be ruined for years. We have known farmers so destroy many acres of valuable Grouse cover purely to secure pasturage for sheep. ”

“ The grouse is larger than the partridge, and, when full grown, weighs from twenty to two-and-twenty ounces. The plumage is variegated, and beautifully composed of black, red, and white; the tail being similar to that of the partridge, but a little larger when extended in flight.
The GROUSE perseveringly adhere to those mountains and moors which are covered with heath, seldom or ever descending into the lower grounds. They fly in packs, consisting of four or five brace; and indulge upon intervening tracts of soft mossy ground, particularly in the hotter months of the year. ”

“ My reply was, that firstly there was not 150 brace upon the moor, and that if I let it I should be cheating him, and that if I did, shooting the little there was would do me far more damage by the loss of the breeding stock than the value of the £100, or three or four times the £100.
It is difficult to educate people to the knowledge of the fact that the breeding of grouse is like the breeding of other animals or birds, and that grouse are not in some mysterious way showered down by Providence like manna in the desert. ”

“ The grouse have taken to bud-eating from necessity—birch buds mostly, with occasional trips to the orchards for variety. They live much now in the trees, which they dislike; but with a score of hungry enemies prowling for them day and night, what can a poor grouse do?
When a belated snow falls, you follow their particular enemy, the fox, where he wanders, wanders, wander's on his night's hunting. Across the meadow, to dine on the remembrance of field mice—alas! safe now under the crust; along the brook, where he once caught frogs; through the thicket, where the grouse were hatched ”

“ Ground which has been covered by snow for a period of several months provides better and more wholesome food than ground which has been heavily stocked, for when birds return in the spring they find the food supply still untouched by Grouse or Sheep, and the fact that it has been out of reach for so long has prevented it from being so heavily infected by the larvæ of Trichostrongylus as the lower moors which were crowded with Grouse throughout the winter. The melting of the snow may also have the effect of washing the Strongyle larvae out of the heather. ”

“ Much may be done to minimise this risk by forming little backwaters in the drains with shelving banks, by which the young Grouse may escape in time of danger. With regard to flooding, it is necessary to speak with more reserve. Flooding is a gradual process, and the instinct of self-preservation, which teaches the young Grouse to Flooding hide from his foes, will doubtless also teach him to retreat before the rising waters. ”

“ Redruff skimmed to her side, terribly frightening the bright-eyed downlings, and was just a little dashed to find the brood with claims far stronger than his own. But he soon accepted the change, and thenceforth joined himself to the brood, caring for them as his father never had for him.
VI
Good fathers are rare in the grouse world. The mother-grouse builds her nest and hatches out her young without help. She even hides the place of the nest from the father and meets him only at the drum-log and the feeding-ground, or perhaps the dusting-place, which is the club-house of the grouse kind. ”

“ In one case, however, flooding is a real menace, for if the nesting season is a dry one Grouse have been known to nest in very unsuitable places, such as the beds of burns and dried-up pools and water-courses — often with most disastrous results when the weather breaks.
But, if there has been no rain, the drowning theory must be discarded, and Drought its place is taken by the drought theory; in other words, the fine, dry, warm, sunny weather which is credited with producing a healthy stock in a good year is the cause of their wholesale destruction in a bad year. ”

“ Dry ground is always preferred; birds will not nest on boggy or damp ground, and are more likely to leave their nests on account of wet than for any other reason.
On some moors where the heather has been very closely burnt or the stock is unusually large, the Grouse appear to be unable to find nesting ground exactly suited to their requirements, and on these occasions they will boldly depart from their usual habits and will nest in short heather, flat dead bracken, or even on a bare unsheltered piece of burnt ground, leaving the nest as open as that of the Lapwing. ”

“ In some districts it has been found beneficial to plant trees as a shelter for Grouse; in other districts, especially in the north of Scotland, they never use woods for shelter.
It is generally believed that a hard winter with much snow is beneficial to the health of the stock in the following spring, and the reason commonly given is that the hard weather kills off the weaklings. There is no evidence to support this theory. Grouse are seldom found dead during the winter months, and when they are the cause can never be ascribed directly to the effects of weather. ”

“ Many sportsmen, even of some experience, would be surprised to find how well grouse lie to dogs on the west coast up to the very last day of the season. In and after October the following varieties may be added to the bag of grouse, viz., woodcock, snipe, wild duck, teal, golden plover, rock-pigeon, hares, and rabbits. Of course black game and partridges are also frequently met with, as well as roe-deer.
Grouse and ptarmigan are shot in all the deer forests of Gairloch. There are only three separate grouse shootings in the parish, viz., those attached to Inveran, Poolhouse, and Drumchork. ”

“ Twenty-four years of Glenmarkie and Dalnawillan leases have resulted in nine splendid seasons; five middling ditto; one very middling; and nine with practically no shooting.
On Dalnawillan and Rumsdale moors, the number of grouse killed by sportsmen were as follows:—
In addition, in the seasons of 1879, '80, '81, '86 and '87, a considerable number of grouse were killed in the winter months by the keeper. ”