Toward the middle of October, the old hens drive off the broods, or the young birds now perfectly mature, stray from them of their own accord; and thenceforth they are found sometimes in little companies of two, three, or four, but far more often singly, in wild, difficult upland woods, through which they love to ramble deviously for miles, as they are led in search of their favorite food, or sometimes, as it would seem, by mere whim. On one occasion, many years since, when I was but a young sportsman on this side the Atlantic, I remember footing a small party of five birds, in a light snow, for above ten miles among the Wawayanda mountains, in Orange County, New York, without getting up to them; although it was easily seen by their hurried and agitated tracks that for a great part of the distance, they were within hearing of me, and were running from my pursuit. I had no dogs with me. Had I been out with setters, the Grouse would have trailed them for miles, and unquestionably risen at last out of shot. With spaniels, or curs, trained to run in upon them, and pursue, yelping loudly, as the mode is in the backwoods where men do not shoot but gun, they would have taken to the trees, and would have sat close to the trunk with their bodies erect, and their necks elongated, and might have been killed easily, the only difficulty being that of perceiving them, a difficulty far more considerable than would be imagined to an unpracticed eye. To shoot birds sitting, however, whether on trees or on the ground, is not sport for a sportsman; the only case where it is ever _allowable_, is to the woodsman on a tramp through the primitive and boundless forest, where his camp-kettle must be filled by the contents of his bag, and where to throw away a chance is, perhaps, in the end to go supperless to bed. In such a case, while canoeing it last Autumn “with a goodly companye” up the northern rivers that debouche into Lake Huron, we shot many, while portaging around cataracts or rapids on the Severn; and on one occasion a gentlemen of the party shot three birds, out of one small pine-tree, without any of them moving or appearing alarmed at the gun-shots. This has often been related as a constant and ordinary habit of the bird; and from that occurrence, I am induced to believe that when the bird is in its natural solitudes, unacquainted with man and his murderous weapons, such may be the case; in the settlements, however, it might have been when they were rare and sparse, this is the habit of the Ruffed Grouse no longer. I have never in my life, save in the instance mentioned, observed any thing of the kind; on the contrary, I have ever found them the wildest, the most wary, and, unless by some mere chance, the least approachable of all wild birds.