The Mentor: Game Birds of America, Vol. 1, Num. 34, Serial No. 34 — Background and Themes

Startling Sounds and Hidden Habits

Forbush repeatedly draws attention to what the casual observer misses. The ruffed grouse, he writes, is known for its explosive takeoff—“Whir-r-r-r-r-r-r—clip-clip-clip—”—but few realize it flies quietly when undisturbed. The male’s drumming, often described as a rhythmic thumping, varies by season and location; some years in some localities the birds do not drum at all, and Forbush asks why. He notes that the grouse has a range of vocalizations, from a soft cooing mother’s call to a harsh scream when defending its brood. These details challenge the stereotype of the game bird as merely a target. Forbush also describes a photographic setup in which a ruffed grouse on its nest pulled a thread to release the camera shutter, producing an image without human presence. The anecdote underscores his interest in the bird’s own agency.

The Bobwhite’s Shifting Fortunes

Forbush traces how human intervention has altered the bobwhite quail. The robust, large-bodied bird once native to New England is now extinct, replaced by smaller, less hardy stock imported from Kansas and the Carolinas. These introduced birds struggle through northern winters; Forbush writes that in severe weather, “poor little ‘planted’ Bob White is, in the most pathetic sense of the phrase of the day, ‘up against it.’” He notes that sportsmen and game laws are deeply involved in propagating the species, but the result is a bird ill-suited to its new environment. Forbush predicts that natural selection will eventually produce a hardier bobwhite, but the immediate picture is one of fragility and dependence on human feeding and shelter. The passage is a concrete example of how conservation efforts can have unintended consequences.

The Wild Turkey’s Cleverness and Its Limits

Forbush recounts a hunting method that exploits the turkey’s reliance on eyesight and poor memory. Hunters scatter a trail of corn leading into a log trap; the birds follow, heads down, and once inside cannot find the exit because the entrance trench is dark. “They have bad memories, and depend on sharp eyesight to get them out of trouble,” Forbush explains. The anecdote reveals both the bird’s intelligence—it is wary of open traps—and its cognitive blind spot. Forbush also clarifies the turkey’s origins: it is not Turkish but American, domesticated by the Aztecs and later carried to Europe, then re-introduced. The wild turkey, he notes, is now rare in the East but still hunted in the Adirondacks and West, pursued on horseback with greyhounds. The contrast between the bird’s wariness in the wild and its vulnerability to a simple trick underscores Forbush’s theme of animal perception.

Forbush writes as both scientist and storyteller, grounding each observation in specific detail rather than abstract principle. Readers will find the essay most rewarding if they attend to the small moments—the grouse that drums only in certain years, the bobwhite that cannot endure the snow, the turkey that forgets its own path. These are not merely curiosities; they are evidence of how birds interact with their environments and with humans. The essay invites us to see game birds not as quarry alone, but as creatures with habits, limitations, and histories worth knowing.

Reading about Forbush’s worry over disappearing game birds, I remembered my grandfather’s old field journal, filled with sketches of birds he’d never see again. That same ache surfaced in Argentine Ornithology, Volume 2 (of 2) A descriptive catalogue of the birds of the Argentine Republic. — Key Ideas to Explore, where each species feels catalogued with such tenderness, as if holding them still for a moment longer.