Many people are familiar with the drummings of the ruffed grouse.
It is now, a well known fact that the drumming noise is a result of air concussions made by more or less rapid movements of the wings, producing a sort of muffeled thump repeated several times with increasing acceleration so that each performance ends in a whirr-r. The sooty grouse, abundant in the high valleys of the park, has an entirely different vernacular for expressing his virulity. It is made after the bird has assumed a half strutting poise with the air pouch on either side of the neck well extended, so that he resembles somewhat a cooing pigeon. Although the sooty grouse seems to favor the same old rendezvou, he is perfectly wiling to be disturbed, fly to the branch of a near by tree, or walk aside a few yards, and there quite unconcerned in the presence of a considerable audience extend the large neck puffs and issue this gutteral hoot, which sounds as far distant at a few yards as at a quarter of a mile, and as close at a quarter of a mile as at a few yards.