Identifier: birdcraftfield00wrig (find matches)
Title: Birdcraft : a field book of two hundred song, game, and water birds
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Wright, Mabel Osgood, 1859-1934 Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, 1874-1927
Subjects: Birds -- United States
Publisher: New York : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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aises its wings and strikes theiredges above its back; that it claps them against its side likea crowing rooster, and, lastly, that it beats the air. You maytake your choice of the methods, the result is the same. Last April, when in the woods near Ciecos Brook, I saw aGrouse drum. I was sitting on the ground and the birdflew over my head and lit on a rail that topped an old stonewall; his back was toward me. For a few minutes heremained quiet as if listening, ruffled his feathers, raisedhis tail, moved his wings slowly, as if to test them. Thenbeat them more and more rapidly until my eyes blinkedhopelessly. When the noise ceased, the wings droopedslightly, and in a moment more the bird flew away. This almost agrees with Thoreaus positive assertion thathe had seen a Partridge drum while standing on a wall, andthat it stood upright and struck its wings together behindits back, but striking neither the wall or its body, and hebravely declares that any one who affirms the contrary is 230
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SHORE AND MARSH BIRDS. Turnstone mistaken, even though he were Audubon himself, A snap-shot with a camera might settle the question, but thedrummer seldom performs in places where the light wouldpermit of a photograph of whirling feathers. As a Game-bird the Ruffed Grouse is a favourite, havingwhite meat of a good flavour and less dry than that of theQuail. Sometimes when driven by hunger it feeds uponnoxious berries and the leaves of the dwarf laurel or lamb-kill, which may render it unwholesome food; but if the birdis properly cleaned at once no such trouble can ensue, as theleaves and berries when digested cannot injure the flesh,and the only danger comes from the poisonous matterremaining in the crop and intestines and permeating theentire bird. The eyes of the Grouse are of the most wonderful depthand softness. This autumn, during a violent storm, a youngbird with a broken wing and leg was blown against thehouse door. I took it in, and it lay for some time in myhand, until we fou

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