The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-02-08
----------------- VHE RUBBED GnOU SEE.


 Often, as walk alone through the
 winter woods, perhaps following the trail of a fox across some frozen swamp the silence of the wilderness is
 abruptly broke by loud deeptoned
 'whirr-r-r-r," and I look up quickly to
 see reddish-brown cannon ball disap-
 pear over the tops of the snow-laden
 bushes. This is the ruffed grouse, one
 of the finest game birds in America,
 and the whirr of his powerful wings is
 music to every lover of nature. Just
 why he makes so much ado when he
 flies away don't know, unless he does | it to disconcert his approaching ene-
 mics; at any rate, when he thinks there
 are no enemies about, he can fly off
 with as little sound as most other large birds.
 | In appearance the ruffed grouse is very handsome. He is very much larger than his little cousin Bob-white, being nearly eighteen inches in total | length. The prevailing color of the up- per parts is bright reddish brown, mot | tied with black, buff, gray and white; , his wings are olive brown, edged with
 white, and spotted with olive green. The rounded tail is reddish brown, with numerous transverse bars of black. The throat and breast are ochraceous- buff, the breast with broken band of black, and the rest of the under parts are yellowish- white barred black or dark brown. But the most striking fea- ture of his plumage consists of two tufts of large, glossy black feathers, one on each side of the neck. These tufts may be elevated at will, and together they constitute the ruff from which the bird takes his name. The plumage of the female is quite similar, but the ruffs on her neck are much smaller than those of her mate.
 All through the winter we may find the tracks of the grouse on the snow. They greatly resemble the tracks of small domestic hen, but the marks of the toes are broader in proportion and moreover they are not so deep. Their greater breadth is due to the strong, horny fringes with which the toes are provided in winter, and which answer the purpose of snow shoes The trail winds through the woods, in and out of the bushes, sometimes for more than half a mile at time, indicating here and there the points at which the grouse has fingered to peck at the laurel buds or the catkins. Sometimes the trail of a fox follows all the Windings through the undergrowth, to a point where a few wind-strewn feathers tell their story of woodland tragedy, or to a spot where the disposition of the foot prints conjure up a picture of whirr- ing grouse and a baff1ed fox.
 Whenever the weather is intensely cold the bird will frequently burrow into snowdrift to pass the night If the crust hardens before morning the groust finds himself prisoner, and un- less he is strong enough to break through the icy covering he will proba- bly, starve to death. In any case he stands a chance of being dug out by 8 hungry fox, or of being murdered in cold blood by a mink or a weasel, At other times of the year he usually roosts in evergreen trees
 In the spring great change comes over the grouse. He remembers his wife of the year before, and their snug nest of leaves under the fallen birch tree in the woods. Then he flies off to their old trysting place-a fallen log or a moss- covered stone in fence corner gives the loud, rolling signal for which he is so famous After proudly up and down the log or stone, he will stand up on the tips of his toes and begin to drum. His wings beat the air in front of his body, at first slowly and distinctly, then with grad | ually increasing speed, until the indi- vidual strokes are lost and the sound finally dies away like the roll of a drum. If there is no immediate re- | sponse he will strut up and down and presently drum again as vigorously as before. It is signal which no un- mated female grouse can hear unmoved and by and by perhaps the handsome gallant is rewarded by seeing his pretty little sweetheart stealing coyly through the grass lO meet him, just as she met him last year at that very spot. Or, he may be less fortunate, and some rival male, hearing the drumming, and taking it as a personal challenge, may come flying over field and hedge to &C., 2ept it. Then there is a lively battle and the victorious bird will be the fu- .ure lord of that particular drumming og,
 In May the neWly-mated grouse make their nest of dead leaves on the ground ill some secluded spot in the woods. Sometimes it is made at the 'oot of a tree. sometimes at the base of ln overhanging rock, and at other times lnder 8 loose pile of brush, or beneath t