three calling it the ‘panridge"°5. There is however

some historical evidence suggesting that a second species of grouse, the spruce grouse (Dendragapus canadens/s), also occurred on the island: two recorders, Walsh (1803) and Bain (1891), distinguish two species of grouse on the island, which from the detailed descriptions given are clearly the spruce grouse and the ruffed grouse.106 Even so, Godfrey (1954) expressed some doubt about Bain’s record, and listed its past presence on the island as ‘hypothetical’. Even more may we have doubts about Walsh, since he spent only two weeks on the island, and he must thus have been reliant on others for much of the information that he records on the island’s fauna. And it is especially odd that such a short-stay visitor should list the species when no other writer of the early period including Stewart (1806), whom Walsh met, makes any mention of the spruce grouse. So if this species did once occur on the island‘°7, it was likely to have been far rarer and less likely to have been encountered than the ruffed grouse, and we may assume that most, if not all, of the references to the ’partridge’ in the historical literature refer to the ruffed grouse.

Many recorders state that the 'partridge’ was very abundant on the island“, and they stress its value as a fine-tasting game birdmg, though because it was easily shot or trapped it did not give good sport”°. To protect the bird during the breeding

‘05 The only writers to give it its proper name were Lawson

(1851); who called it the “ruffed grouse (tetrao umbellus) misnamed partridge"; and Rowan (1876) and Bain (1891) who also called it the ruffed grouse, (it had also been mis-named ‘perdrix' [partridge] during the French period.)

'06 Walsh (1803) said one of the ‘partridges‘ fed on spruce and its flesh tasted of spruce; while the other fed on berries and was better flavoured. Both kinds, he said, were easily caught. Bain (1891) said the “Canada Grouse or Spruce Partridge” inhabited evergreen tracts and swamps; while the “Ruffed Grouse or Partridge" frequented dry hardwoods and uplands. He said that both species fed on the berries of heath plants and brambles in summer, and on the seeds and buds of birches in winter.

‘07 I note that the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre classifies the spruce grouse as extirpated on the island (ACCDC 2004).

'08 Patterson 1770; Anon. 1771; [Clark] 1779; [Cambridge] 1796; Stewart 1806; Anon. 1818; [Hill] 1819; Johnstone 1822; Hill 1839; Lawson 1851; Bain 1891 (Bain in fact says that both species of grouse were “quite common“.

109 Stewart 1806 [not extracted]; Anon. 1808; Johnstone 1822; MacGregor 1828; Seymour 1840; Lawson 1851, Holland (1765: October) says that ‘partridges' were caught and eaten by the refugee Acadians.

”° Stewart (1806) [not extracted], Curtis (1775) and Walsh (1803) mention that it was easily caught or shot. It is Hill (1839) who adds that it did not give good sport.

250

season, as early as 1780 a law was enacted prohibiting shooting from 1 April to 1 August”‘. Both Stewart (1806) and Lawson (1851) associate the abundance of the grouse with the production of beech mast, Stewart saying that the birds became very plentiful in the year after a large crop of mast.

The passenger pigeon — The now extinct passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) is listed by fourteen of the recorders who made lists of the island’s mammals (Table 2-1), it, along with the ’partridge’, usually being the only birds to be taken note of.112 Though the context in which it is mentioned is always that of a game bird, the only direct comment on it as a food for people is Bain’s (1891) description of it as a ”delicious species of game”. Most recorders note that it was a summer visitor to the island113 and that it nested in flocks in the woods‘”, with the phrases used all suggesting large numbers of birds”. There is no mention in island records of the types of forest used by the birds, nor of what the birds ate while in the woods.116 However, observations from elsewhere in North America‘”, indicate that beech mast was one of their more important foods, and it is thus likely that it was the large area of the island’s beech forests that attracted the birds. Stewart (1806) noted that in some years they were present in greater numbers than others, and that at harvest they could be ”particularly troublesome” in fields near the woods, where they

“1 House of Assembly (1773-1849) (see 1780). At some stage

the closed season was extended to 1 September (Stewart 1806, MacGregor 1828). However; almost a century later Rowan (1876) (not extracted) observed that the game laws were a “dead letter', not being enforced.

“2 All called it the ‘wild pigeon'; except Holland (1765: October) who called it a ‘dove'.

“3 More narrowly, Holland (1765: October) said they came to the island in July and August.

“4 Both Stewart (1806) and MacGregor (1828) state that the birds nested on the island.

”5 “The woods are pretty well stocked with pigeons" (Patterson 1770); “flocks" ([Cambridge] 1796; Walsh 1803); “great flocks“ (MacGregor 1828); “in great plenty" (Stewart 1806); “plentiful" (Hill 1839); Questionnaire 1876: e.g. “plenty”, “in great numbers“, “very numerous", “abundant"; “any amount of wild pigeons“.

“6 We have one site-specific record of its occurrence: Sir George Seymour‘s son; Henry; shot a “wood pigeon" along the Western Road, south of the area of Springhill in the late afternoon of 21 August 1840 (Seymour 1840).

117

Forbush 1917; pp. 42; 46; and Encyclopedia Smithsonian (on the internet at: www.si.edu/resource/faq/nmnh/passpig.htm).