438 SPOTTED OR CANADA GROUS.
that about half an hour after our departure they had seen a fine covey.
We were too much fatigued to go in search of them, and therefore made
for home.
Ever ardent, if not impatient, I immediately made arrangements for
procuring some of these birds, offering a good price for a few pairs of old
and young, and in a few days renewed my search in company with a man
who had assured me he could guide me to their breeding grounds, and which
he actually did, to my great pleasure. These breeding grounds I cannot
better describe than by telling you that the larch forests, which are
there called " Hackmetack Woods,*" are as difficult to traverse as the
most tangled swamps of Labrador. The whole ground is covered by the
most beautiful carpeting of verdant moss, over which the light-footed
Grous walk with ease, but among which we sunk at every step or two up
to the waist, our legs stuck in the mire, and our bodies squeezed between
the dead trunks and branches of the trees, the minute leaves of which insinuated
themselves among my clothes, and nearly blinded me. We
saved our guns from injury, however, and seeing some of the Spruce Partridges
before they perceived us, we procured several specimens. They
were in beautiful plumage, but all male birds. It is in such places that
these birds usually reside, and it is very seldom that they are seen in
the open grounds, beyond the borders of their almost impenetrable retreats.
On returning to my family, I found that another hunter had
brought two fine females, but had foolishly neglected to bring the young
ones, which he had caught and given to his children, who to my great
mortification had already cooked them when my messenger arrived at his
house.
The Spruce Partridge or Canada Grous breeds in the States of Maine
and Massachusetts about the middle of May, nearly a month earlier than
at Labrador. The males pay their addresses to the females by strutting
before them on the ground or moss, in the manner of the Turkey Cock,
frequently rising several yards in the air in a spiral manner, when they
beat their wings violently against their body, thereby producing a drumming
noise, clearer than that of the Ruffed Grous, and which can be
heard at a considerable distance. The female places her nest beneath
the low horizontal branches of fir trees, taking care to conceal it well.
It consists of a bed of twigs, dry leaves and mosses, on which she deposits
from eight to fourteen eggs of a deep fawn colour, irregularly splashed
with different tints of brown. They raise only one brood in the season,
SPOTTED OR CANADA GROUS. 439
and the young follow the mother as soon as hatched. The males leave
the females whenever incubation has commenced, and do not join them
again until late in autumn ; indeed, they remove to different woods, when
they are more shy and wary than during the love season or in winter.
This species walks much in the manner of our Partridge. I never
saw one jerk its tail as the Ruffed Grous does, nor do they burrow in the
snow like that bird, but usually resort to trees to save themselves from
their pursuers. They seldom move from thence at the barking of a dog,
and when roused fly only to a short distance, uttering a few clucks, which
they repeat on alighting. In general, when a flock is discovered, each individual
forming it may be easily caught, for so seldom do they see men in
the secluded places which they inhabit, that they do not seem to be aware
of the hostile propensities of the race.
Along the shores of the Bay of Fundy, the Spruce Partridge is much
more abundant than the Ruffed Grous, which indeed gradually becomes
scarcer the farther north we proceed, and is unknown in Labrador, where
it is replaced by the Willow Grous, and two other species. The females
of the Canada Grous differ materially in their colouring in different latitudes.
In Maine, for instance, they are more richly coloured than in
Labrador, where I observed that all the individuals procured by me
were of a much greyer hue than those shot near Dennisville. The like
difference is perhaps still more remarkable in the Ruffed Grous, which
are so very grey and uniformly coloured in the Northern and Eastern
States, as to induce almost every person to consider them as of a species
distinct from those found in Kentucky, or any of the southern mountainous
districts of the Union. I have in my possession skins of both species
procured a thousand miles apart, that present these remarkable differences
in the general hue of their plumage.
All the species of this genus indicate the approach of rainy weather or
a snow storm, with far more precision than the best barometer; for on the
afternoon previous to such weather, they all resort to their roosting place*
earlier by several hours than they do during a continuation of fine weather.
I have seen groups of Grous flying up to their roosts at mid-day, or as
soon as the weather felt heavy, and have observed that it generally rained
in the course of that afternoon. When, on the contrary, the same flock
would remain busily engaged in search of food until sunset, I found the
night and the following morning fresh and clear. Indeed, I believe that
this kind of foresight exists in the whole tribe of Gallinaceous bird-.