WILDNESS AND TAMENESS OF THE RUFFED GROUSE. The ruffed grouse is one of the most difficult of all North American game birds to keep in captivity. This fact is due largely, though not entirely, to the nervous and often hysterical temperament of this species. Some birds will within a reasonable time quiet down and accept captivity, but others throughout long periods,--or forever,-- remain wild as hawks, and perpetually try to dash themselves to pieces against the wire of their enclosures. Prof. A. A. Allen of Cornell once kept a bird for an entire year, only to find it at the end of that time hopelessly wild; so he gave the bird its liberty. However, in this species there are numerous exceptions. Some wing- tipped birds have calmed down and accepted captivity gracefully and sensibly, and a few of the cases of this kind have been remarkable. The most astonishing cases, however, have been of the tameness of free wild birds, in the Catskills, and also near the city of Schenectady. A great many perfectly truthful stories have been published of wild birds that actually sought close acquaintance with people, and took food from their hands. We have been asked to account for those strange manifestations, but it is impossible to do so. It seems that in some manner, certain grouse individuals learned that Man is not always a killer and a dangerous animal, and so those birds accepted him as a friend,--until the killers came along and violated the sanctuary status. It is both necessary, and highly desirable for the increase of species, that all wild birds should fly promptly, rapidly and far from the presence of Man, the Arch Enemy of Wild Life. The species that persistently neglects to do so, or is unable, soon is utterly destroyed. The great auk species was massacred and extirpated on Funk Island because it could not get away from its sordid enemies who destroyed it for a paltry supply of _oil_. The Fool Hen and Its Folly. In our own country there exists a grouse species so foolish in its mind, and so destitute of the most ordinary instinct of self-preservation that it has been known for many years as "the Fool Hen." Definitely, it is the Franklin Grouse (_Conachites franklini_), and its home is in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. This famous and pitiable victim of misplaced confidence will sit only eight feet up on a jack pine limb, beside a well travelled road, while Mack Norboe dismounts, finds a suitable stick, and knocks the foolish bird dead from its perch. I have seen these birds sit still and patiently wait for their heads to be shot off, one by one, with a .22 calibre revolver when all points of the compass were open for their escape.