poor birds find themselves in a prison from which they cannot break out before they starve to death. The habit of huddling is peculiar to Quails the whole year round. They select at evening some spot of low ground, where the long grass affords shelter and warmth, and there they encamp, sleeping in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, with heads turned out, keeping each other warm, and ready to escape at a moment's warning without stumbling over one another. A suitable roosting-place once found, night after night they repair thither, leaving it in the morning before sunrise to seek their breakfast.

Unless the winter be unusually mild, they may be seen. associating in the pasture with the cattle, and even following them home to glean the grain that falls into the barnyard, and pick up the scraps that are thrown to the chickens. This delightful confidence is not always abused, for many persons take pains to foster the bevies they find spending the winter in some brushy hillside near the house by daily scattering grain or clover-seed upon the snow where the hungry birds may come and get it. The pert air with which one of the cocks will perch himself on a fencerider or walk sedately along a stone wall in the early sunlight of a glistening January morning is reward enough to the benefactor, if he cares not to preserve them for the selfish pleasure of shooting them the following autumn.

As a delicate article of food the Quail is highly esteemed, and during the time the law allows the markets are filled with bunches of them. Various devices in the form of snares, nets and traps are called into service to effect their capture, and in some parts of the country, New England especially, fresh importations have been necessary to preserve a sufficient number for sport. Bands of beaters in the Southern and Western States cautiously drive immense flocks into nets, but there is less danger of exterminating this than almost any other species of game-bird, it would seem, on account of its sequestered habits and prolificacy.

Taming and domestication is an easy matter with these birds. In all cases, however, where the eggs have been hatched under a hen at liberty, the Quail chicks have run away to the woods as soon as the leaves have turned sear in the fall and never come back. They sang their "Ah, Bob White!" just as clearly before they had ever heard one of their kin as any woodland-bred Quails could do. It is quite common to re-colonize portions of the Eastern States when they have become depopulated, and an effort made some years ago to introduce these birds into the Salt Lake Valley of Utah was eminently successful. Within the past few years some of the West India Islands have been colonized, but attempts to acclimatize the birds in England and Ireland have proved most signal failures.

RUFFED GROUSE.

ONSIDERABLE misapprehension exists in relation

CON

to the popular appellation of this species. In some parts of the country it is dubbed the Partridge, while in others it goes by the name of Pheasant. It is neither. All its affinities point away from these families, in the direction of the True Grouse, of which it constitutes a useful and interesting member. Pheasants are never found in the United States, but are indigenous to Southern Asia. Their nearest representative here is the Wild Turkey. Almost as much may be said of the Partridge, a group of birds which are exclusive denizens of the Old World.

But now to our subject. Few Grouse are so well known as the Ruffed Grouse, the Bonasa umbellus of Stephens. Everywhere throughout the timbered regions of Eastern North America it is more or less plentiful, ranging from the Atlantic seaboard to the Rocky Mountains, and from Georgia to Nova Scotia. In all our Southern States, Louisiana excepted, these birds exist to some extent, and are also to be found over limited portions of the Missouri region, but, doubtless, more especially about the mouth of the river, and in the contiguous country. In the western parts of the region it is represented by a form which passes with ornithologists as a well-defined, genuine variety. It seems to be wanting in California, but in the wooded sections of the Cascade Range, as well as in the valley of the Willamette in Oregon, where it exists under a new varietal name, it is by no means an uncommon occupant. In the New England, Middle Atlantic and Northern Central States it is that these

birds are to be seen to the best advantage, and in the greatest numbers. West of the Mississippi, if we exclude Eastern Kansas, Southern Iowa and the whole of Missouri, they occur, if at all, in comparatively small and isolated parties.

In regions which these Grouse inhabit, they are permanent residents, and are never known to move southward with the retreat of warm weather. They are capable of adapting themselves to climatic variations with ease, but not so readily to surface irregularities and their natural concomitants. Dense woods, craggy mountain-sides and the borders of streams are noted places of resort. Lowlands, especially such as are invested with thick growths of small bushes and tall, rank grasses, are not infrequently chosen. When in search of food and gravel, they are known to quit their favorite haunts and betake themselves to the open road, where groups may be seen absorbed in feeding, but not to that extent, however, when the rustle of a moving leaf or the crackling of a twig would pass unnoticed. The slightest noise causes a temporary suspension of labor and a momentary shudder of surprise. All of a sudden, and in the most perfect harmony, all heads are raised and pointing in the direction whence the noise emanated. The keen vision of these birds is not slow in discerning, through the gloomy recesses, the presence of danger; but should nothing of ant alarming nature manifest itself, a short parley ensues and business is resumed, though not with the same earnestness and lack of care, however, as before. Greater caution is now observable, and every effort taken to prevent an ambuscade. But let the cause of the alarm, a dog or a man, be close at hand, and the birds immediately strike for the cover, either on foot or by means of flight, the latter method only being adopted in extreme cases, when the other course would be attended by disaster and probable ruin. In the exercise of their cursorial powers, they move with remarkable swiftness, as with head depressed and tail expanded they run for their lives. A pile of brushwood or an impenetrable jungle, when

near, is rendered subservient. There they manage to conceal themselves for a time and thus recover breath. Closely pursued, and in danger of being trampled upon by the foot of the huntsman or lacerated by the fangs of his quadrupedal friend, they await the opportune moment, when, with sudden whirring wings, they cleave the elastic ether and vigorously press forward to some transitory haven of security, but only to fall once more in the way of their relentless persecutors. These flights are so well timed and so unexpected that many an experienced gunner is thrown off his guard, and when, at last, he has recovered from his surprise and collected his thoughts, feels vexed at himself for allowing his equanimity to become unsettled by so familiar a stratagem. He finds it useless to repine, but endeavors to choke down the bitter sigh of disappointment that arises as he presses forward to further adventures.

Like the common barnyard fowl, these Grouse are strictly gregarious, especially during the autumnal and winter months. The flocks they form vary in numbers, and when disturbed, while feeding, scatter in all directions, each member seeking only its own individual safety and well-being. But after the lapse of a few minutes, becoming reassured, they gather simultaneously about the same spot, travelling the entire distance on foot. The utmost circumspection and vigilance are always exercised in these backward movements. Scarcity of food occasionally causes these birds, where very numerous in mountainous districts, to migrate to other places. These journeys are usually undertaken about the middle of October, they then being in excellent order and in great demand for the table. Audubon witnessed, in the fall of 1820, an immense number in transitu from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois to Kentucky, many of whom became a prey to man. This disposition to lead a roving, migratory life is, as a general thing, not hereditary, and consequently is seldom undertaken, plenty of food usually being found in localities which these birds affect.