Part 18

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.

Considerable misapprehension exists in relation 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 an 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.

Where there is a paucity of food-materials, such as acorns, the seeds of the beech and of the various species of birch, they do not hesitate to devour the buds of the mountain laurel, which impart a poisonous character to their flesh. When severely hunger-pressed they feed upon dry bark, the insects that harbor in the creviced trunks and branches of trees, and even stray to the roads that wander through their gloomy retreats and peck at the hard, frozen horse-droppings they chance to encounter. But when spring returns and renews her bond of faith with Mother Earth, they more than make up for their scanty winter fare and feast with fastidious appetites upon the now tender and juicy buds of the black birch, which give a peculiar and toothsome flavor to their flesh that has acquired for them in some localities the name of Birch Partridge. For a brief spell every other interest is now absorbed in that of unrestrained feasting, to which the sexes submit themselves with all the _abandon_ of civilized humanity. The middle of March, or the close of the month dedicated by the ancient Romans to purifications and fastings, when the weather is favorable, marks a change in their life. This era is announced by a loud drumming noise, which is everywhere heard. Standing upon a tall rock or a prostrate log in some secluded woods or other locality, the author of this noise may be found. His attitude and demeanor needs must be seen to be appreciated. Once seen, he can never be forgotten. Arrayed in a brand-new spring suit, he is a being not to be despised. But this is not all. His beautifully-contracted neck, broad, expanded, fan-like tail and elevated feather-tufts that ornament both sides of his neck, as he struts about with all the grace and dignity of some pompous lord or duke, render him of no mean importance and greatly add to his attractions.

But it is his final actions that impress the beholder with wonder and admiration. The hitherto trailing wings now assume a condition of rigidity, and commence a firm, but slow, downward and forward movement, which steadily increases in power and rapidity, until the swiftly-vibrating wings appear only as a semi-circular outline of mist above the bird, thus giving rise to a sound which may be appropriately likened to the reverberations of distant, muttering thunder. These sounds are most generally heard during the cool hours of the morning, when his spirits are buoyant after a night of refreshing slumber. But as the day advances, they are less frequent, and irregular. So nicely can they be imitated, that many a bird is drawn to his doom, when advancing, as he supposed, to meet an antagonist.

As the drumming is as often heard in the fall as in the spring, it has long been a mooted question as to its significancy as the call-note of the male during the period of breeding. But there can be no doubt of the correctness of this interpretation, for incontestable proof exists of it in the responsive actions of the female. Nuttall is probably correct in ascribing the autumnal exhibition of the power to self-gratification, and in affirming it to be, in many instances, “an instinctive expression of hilarity and vigor.”

Besides the peculiar drumming sound which the males produce during the love-season, they give expression to other vocal utterances no less remarkable. These are generally enunciated when about to arise from the ground, and consist of two well-defined and characteristic notes. The first may be described as a sort of cackle, repeated several times in lively succession; and the other, which closely follows in its wake, as a peculiar lisping whistle, which has not inaptly been compared to the cry of a young bird. These notes doubtless play a considerable part in the reconciliation and bringing together of the sexes after their temporary separation.

While the courting-season lasts, it is not an uncommon occurrence to find a single male in the midst of several females before whom he is engaged in showing off his many good qualities and graces, or two males displaying, upon the same fallen log, the excellent beauties of their person and movements. In the former dilemma, enamored of so many, he is sometimes disposed to be gay and trifling, dallying with the affections of some pure, simple-minded female. The most cruel flirtations are often indulged in. But when he does bring himself earnestly down to the business of choosing a partner, he does not go about it in an uncertain, hesitating manner, but makes his selection with promptness and dispatch. The successful female, proud of the honor conferred, at the call of her lord, forsakes the group of her unmarried sisters, and follows wheresoever he leadeth. The warmest tokens of affection and regard are lavished upon the elected bride, and woe to the rival who should appear upon the scene while these amours are being enacted. Should this event occur, the intruder is instantly assailed, and a long and bloody battle ensues, which results in the death of one or other of the combatants, but never in the complete vanquishment of the defensive party. Instances are known where males have treated their first loves with cruel indifference, and subsequently deserted them, but such things could not otherwise be, as will be seen when the question of polygamy comes to be considered, for it is a fact, not generally known, that both birds are slightly promiscuous, the tendency being more pronounced, however, upon the part of the male. In the case where a single female is courted by two males, the successful competitor for the honor of her hand, so to speak, is he whose movements are marked by the greatest elegance and grace. So intense does the desire to please become, that the slightest disposition upon the part of the lady to favor one of the rivals rather than the other, leads to the most unhappy consequences, a quarrel being precipitated, the contestants seeming determined to settle the result by the gage of battle.

The time of mating varies somewhat with climate and with the conditions of the season. In the warm, sunny South it occurs late in March or early in April. But further North, where winter still lingers with frosty coldness, the latter month is well nigh verging to its close, or gliding into the succeeding, before this essential business is thought of. When, however, it does happen, the female, with but little waste of time, withdraws from the society of her partner, and repairs to a secluded spot in the midst of a woods, where, usually beneath a clump of evergreen, or a pile of brush, or perhaps a fallen log or projecting rock, she hastily scratches a few dry leaves together for a nest. There she deposits, one by one, on as many consecutive days, her complement of six to twelve eggs, and immediately enters upon the duties of incubation. In this she is alone, the male lending no assistance, not even indirectly by attending to her demands for food. While she is thus occupied he seeks the company of others of his sex, with whom he remains until the young are nearly full-grown, when he joins the family, and dwells with it until spring. The period of incubation ranges from nineteen to twenty days.

When first hatched the young follow the mother, and soon learn to comprehend her clucking call, as well as to act responsively thereto. Few mothers are more devoted to their children, and it is rare to find one more courageous and wily in their defence. Let the family be surprised by friend or foe, a single note of alarm is all that is necessary to cause the brood to scatter, and with the most clever adroitness to hide themselves beneath a bunch of leaves or grass. So successfully is the concealment accomplished, that a careful and protracted search is often necessary to discover their whereabouts. Often, when squatting by the roadside with her brood, the parent is taken unawares. This is the trial which she of all others seems to dread. To save her little ones she perils her own life by venturing upon an assault. Her first impulse is to fly at the face of the intruder, but sober thought comes to her rescue and teaches her the folly of such a course. She yields to the thought and the very next moment we find her tumbling over and over upon the ground, apparently in the deepest distress, but soon to recover her self-possession in time to carry out the final piece upon the programme, a _ruse_ in which lameness is imitated with wonderful ingenuity. While the mother is thus agitated, the birdlings are seen to scamper in every direction to places of shelter. Having accomplished her part, the happy mother now flies away, and by her well-known cluck soon gathers her brood together. The cry of the young is a simple _peet_, which is heard repeatedly during feeding, but only occasionally while nestling. Their food consists of the seeds of various plants and berries. While able to search for their own food, they derive, however, considerable assistance from the mother.

Such cunning, wee creatures, when first they leave the egg, can only be compared with the young of the domestic hen. Dressed in a simple garb, they look but little like their parents. Above they show a reddish-brown or rufous coloring, which fades into a rusty-white below. Excepting a dusky streak which starts from the posterior part of the eye and crosses the auricular regions obliquely downward, and a whitish bill, they have nothing to diversify the monotony of their plumage. But when they have attained the age of four or five months, they show their heredity so plainly that their identity cannot be disputed or mistaken.

In the adult, the tail is reddish-brown or gray above, with narrow bars of black. Terminally, it is crossed by a slender band of pale ash, which is preceded by a broader one of black, and this by another of an ashy color. The upper parts are ochraceous-brown, and finely mottled with grayish markings. The lower parts are chiefly white, with broad transverse bars of light brown, which are mostly hidden from view upon the abdomen. Upon the shoulders the shafts of the feathers have pale streaks, which also exist in those of the wing-coverts. The upper tail-coverts and the wings are marked with pale, grayish cordate spots, while the lower tail-coverts are pale ochraceous, each being provided with a terminal delta-shaped spot of white, which is bordered with dusky. The neck-tufts are brownish-black. The male measures eighteen inches in length, and has a breadth of wings of seven and two-tenths inches. The tail is about seven inches long. The female is smaller than the latter, with similar colors, but has less prominent tufts upon the sides of the neck.

The eggs of this species are usually of a uniform dark-cream color, but sometimes show a nearly pure-white ground. In most specimens there are no markings at all, but when they do occur, are either quite numerous and conspicuous, or few in number, and obscure. They are usually ovoidal, but forms are occasionally met with which are nearly spherical. Their average dimensions, as obtained from specimens from the most diverse localities, are about 1.64 by 1.18 inches. As far as known the species never produces more than a single brood annually, usually nesting, as has been previously stated, on the ground, but instances are recorded by Samuels, where the female has occupied a crow’s nest, or the shelter of some tall broken trunk of a tree.

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

Little is known of the early history of the domestic Turkey. Writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries seem to have been ignorant about it, and to have regarded it as the guinea-fowl or pintado of the ancients, a mistake which was not cleared up until the middle of the last century. The name it now bears, and which it received in England, where it is reputed to have been introduced in 1541, was given to it from the supposition that it came originally from Turkey. As far back as 1573 we read of it as having been the Christmas fare of sturdy British yeomanry.

Oviedo, a Spanish writer, speaks of it as a kind of peacock that was once very abundant in New Spain, as Mexico was called in his day, and which had already, in 1526, been transported in a domestic condition to the West Indies and the Spanish Main, where it was maintained by the Christian settlers.

Among the luxuries possessed by Montezuma, the proud, dignified, semi-cultured monarch of the Aztecs, was one of the most extensive zoölogical gardens on record. Representatives of nearly all of the animals of the country over which he reigned, as well as others, brought at great expense from long distances, were to be found within its walls. Turkeys, it is said, were daily supplied in large numbers to the carnivores of his menagerie.

Respecting the time when this bird was first reclaimed in Mexico from its wild state, there can be no idea. Probably it has been domesticated from remote antiquity. No doubt exists, however, as to its being reared by the Mexicans at the period of the Spanish Conquest, and of its subsequent introduction into Europe, either from New Spain, or from the West India Islands, into which it had been previously carried.

Audubon, one of the early pioneers of American ornithology, supposed our common barnyard Turkey to have originated in the wild bird so prevalent in the eastern half of our great country. But it has always been a matter of surprise to naturalists that the latter did not assimilate, by interbreeding and reversion, more intimately in color and habits to the domestic form. No suspicion, until recently, appears to have been entertained that the two birds might belong to different species. That such is the true _status_ of things, there is now no reasonable doubt.

Our common Wild Turkey, once so plentiful in Pennsylvania, is now restricted to the more eastern and southern portions of the United States, while in the parts of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona adjacent to the southern Rocky Mountains, and thence stretching southward along the eastern slope of Mexico as far as Orizaba, there exists another form, essentially different, which, by way of distinction, has been popularly called the Mexican Turkey. It is from this species, and not from the other, as has been erroneously supposed and taught, that the domestic fowl has been derived. Even in this enlightened age, with so many ornithological teachers on every hand, we see this mistake propagated by such as know better, and whose business it is, or ought to be, to have a care that truth shall prevail.

Between the wild bird of Eastern North America and the Mexican and typical barnyard fowls there are differences which must be apparent even to the most superficial observer. The extremities of the tail-feathers, as well as the feathers overlying the base of the tail, are in the latter creamy or fulvous white, while in the former they are of a decided chestnut-brown color. Other characteristics exist, but these only become evident to the keen-sighted ornithologist.

The difficulty experienced in establishing a cross between our wild and tame birds, shows that they are not as closely related as was once supposed. Did a near kinship subsist, interbreeding could most readily be accomplished. With the Mexican Turkey, matters are otherwise. That a relationship does obtain between the domestic bird and the latter--its wild original--there can be no question, as specimens of the naturalized species are often met with which are nearly the counterpart of its Mexican progenitor, differing only in the greater development of the fatty appendages of the head and neck, differences which may be accounted for as the effects of the influences to which the birds have been subjected by man. No well-authenticated instances of similar reversions to our once familiar Eastern bird have been known to occur, which would necessarily have been the case had they been so closely related as was once maintained.

_Meleagris Mexicana_ affects sparsely-overgrown savannas, and occupies in Mexico the region of the oaks and the coast--the _tierra caliente_ of geographers. It is a very wary bird, and lives in families. Insects of divers kinds, but chiefly of a coleopterous character, as well as the seeds of grasses, constitute its bill of fare. When searching for food, especially in perilous localities, a sentinel is stationed on the outskirts of the flock, whose duty it is to announce the presence of danger. Flight is seldom resorted to at such times, for these birds, being fleeter of foot than the swiftest dog, are able to escape their enemies by running.