He bowed and said: "Mr. Chairman, you must excuse my slow speech, but you know I am the eldest brother of the grouse family and am not so strong as I used to be. Our history is certainly wonderful! Thousands of years ago we came southward with the ice and as the ice melted we flew north again. Today we live in many lands. I have traveled from Scandinavia with my wife and children, flying over Siberia and Alaska. My wife and I dress alike and our gray summer suits are good for traveling. In winter we prefer white coats, for then the hunter can not tell us from the snow." Just then a bird near us muttered: "That is nothing remarkable. I have three suits every year." "Hush," said a bird near him, "you must not interrupt."
But the willow grouse had finished, and after the young grouse had given him the front seat, for they are very kind to the old, the grouse who had boasted of his coats said: "Mr. President, I come from the high mountain peaks. Men call me ptarmigan or winged, because I have such thick plumage. As this is summer my legs and feet are quite bare and my coat is the color of the twigs, but you should see my winter suit! It is thick and soft and white as snow, and thick downy stockings cover my feet. They help me to make my way over the snow. In the autumn my coat changes to gray—the color of the rocks on the mountain side. It is hard work sometimes to find enough to eat so high up in the mountains, but better a dish of leaves in freedom than to live on plenty in constant fear of the gun of the hunter." "Cock, cock!" said the grouse, and it sounded so much like our "hear, hear!" that I almost laughed aloud.
"The next number on our program will be a waltz," said the chairman. "A waltz," I thought; "grouse waltzing; whoever heard of such a thing?" Just then a handsome young capercailzie came to the log. It is not strange they are called the "cocks-of-the-wood," for they are certainly the handsomest of the grouse family. He puffed out his feathers, strutted back and forth on the log and began his waltz. It was a comical sight! While he was dancing he kept up the oddest singing—all on one note. Soon a black cock joined him and then they tried to show off. Some hens favored the capercailzie and some gathered around the black cock. At last all took sides, and it would have ended in a fight, only the dignified chairman stopped the dance and told them to remember that this was not a fight, but a jubilee. The cocks lowered their wings, but I believe they will fight it out sometime.
"Let us hear from the red grouse; let us hear from the red grouse!" cried several birds at once. A small bird with rich red-brown plumage came to the log.
"This is the first time I have ever been away from Great Britain," said the red grouse, "and I must be back for the 12th of August. That is an exciting day! All summer my wife and I keep with the children and live in peace, but on that day the hunters come. It is great fun to wait till they come very near and then whiz past so quickly that the shot does not reach you!" "Great fun, indeed!" muttered the ptarmigan; "fun for the hunter to slay his thousands every year." "Yes, that is true," replied the red grouse, "but we live in safety all the year except the hunting season. The keepers and the hunters keep the eagle and the fox and all our foes away, and our family of red grouse in Scotland is larger now than before the hunters came. It is because we are on the moors that all the wealthy people come to Scotland in August. Thousands of strangers fill the land, and they all come for us, the little red grouse who live only on British moors. We are proud of the fact that we are the only bird that belongs to Great Britain alone. We take care of our young together, my mate and I, and in October we join other families and fly to the uplands."
Just here the hens of the capercailzie and the black cock began a noisy clatter. "I wish our husbands were like the red grouse," said one. "I think it is a perfect shame," said another; "my mate never stays near the nest. When I must leave the eggs to hunt for food he is never there to keep them warm." "I wish I were a willow grouse or a red grouse," said another demure little hen. The black cocks and the capercailzie looked rather ashamed; even the chairman hung his head, but he quickly called the hens to order, saying: "Now we will hear from our American friend, the ruffed grouse."
"Wake up! Wake up! You have been sleeping in the moonlight!" "Where is the ruffed grouse?" I sleepily ask, and then my brother laughs and asks what I have been dreaming. So it was all a dream, and the moonlight, the pines, the grouse and the jubilee have been but parts of a dream! "You awoke me and now you must tell me about the ruffed grouse," I say to my brother.
"Well, you must know that there are many varieties of grouse in our broad land, but the ruffed grouse is the gamiest and handsomest in plumage of all the grouse family. It is swifter on the wing and harder to shoot.
"This bird is called ruffed grouse because he can raise the numerous wide soft feathers on each side of the neck and make a ruff like those the ladies used to wear when Elizabeth was Queen of England.
"His favorite home is in the heavy bird forests or in the thickets of the scrub oak and he is seldom found in places open enough for good hunting with the dogs.