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Show J'M RHODYpjg ASfe3 Venerable Bird The grouse has been an Inhabitant of this continent for a mighty long time. Bones have been found In caves on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts that date back to the Pleistocene period, some 25,000 years ago. Old carnpfires reveal that the grouse was an Indian delicacy. And even far back of that, King Henry VIII in 1331 put out a royal order concerning the "grows" and the grouse tail was once popular in France as a fan. In fact, the word grouse, itself, comes from the French and means "spotted bird." While the bird Is most plentiful In East Tennessee, it is now moving westward. Quite a few birds were noted last year In several different areas of the Cumberland mountains. The species once blanketed Tennes-gee Tennes-gee and Audubon in 1831 reported birds almost as far south as Natches, Miss. Like Its smaller cousin, the bob-white bob-white quail, the grouse wasn't overly-plentiful before the coming of the white man. The "brown bombshell" scorns dense under-growths under-growths and thrives only In areas near open clearings. The white man, of course, broke up the tim-berland tim-berland Into ideal grouse cover and the bird became plentiful. The grouse prefers second-growth timberland areas that Include some conifers, used for protection against the elements. Oddly enough, the bird was once barred from markets mar-kets in Philadelphia because, among its items of diet, was the poisonous laurel. Too, it can eat poison Ivy berries without suffering suffer-ing any ill effects. AAA It's A Tonic The question that never falls tt be shocking Is, "Why go fishing, when I can buy my fish at the market?" To dyed-ln-the-wool fishermen this question may seem foolish; however, how-ever, the psychology underlying the urge to go fishing makes this indeed an Important question. We moderns, here In America anyway, are reasonably sure there will be a next meal that there will be meat on the table. Yet fishing is more important now than It was in pioneer days. The urgency still has to do with the bodily well-being, but the organ affected Is no longer the stomach; Iff the mind. Doctors tell us that mental disturbances, dis-turbances, heart ailments and gastric gas-tric disorders are on the Increase. Our bodies seem Ill-equipped for the modern tempo of living. And with the current world unrest and our entry Into the atomic age we cannot expect that life will be more simple or more secure In the near future. Relaxation Is extremely Important Im-portant today it may become more significant as time goes on. The man . . . waiting for that 3-pound 3-pound crappie to bite has for the time forgotten his business worries. He is not like the man who follows the small white ball around Bringing Bring-ing frantically at it with a special bent steel rod. He does not pull out a card and write down the number of casts It took to snag the bass he has just landed, then cuss . . . AAA Return Those Cards! After the past season, many duck hunters received franked return postcards from the regional offices of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Serv-ice. This marks a new experiment to obtain more accurate information informa-tion on the waterfowl harvest In which the Individual sportsman holds the key, according to the Wildlife Management Institute. The card simply asks for the number num-ber of days the hunter was afield, the number of ducks, geese, and coots bagged, and the state In which hunting was done. Far better returns are expected from this method than from the report cards published In the magazines and newspapers In past years. Each of the present card recipients has been contacted in the field by a federal game management man-agement agent, and the new procedure pro-cedure requires even less effort. It is, however, a simple and human matter to delay filling out a report of this kind and then to forget it completely. Simple though the Information In-formation may seem, the data compiled from the returns Is extremely ex-tremely Important to those entrusted entrust-ed with the management of the waterfowl. If you received a card, take the few seconds needed to fill In the blanks and mail it. You will help yourself to better hunting if you do. AAA Keeping Records Keeping records of your fishing trips something few fishermen do will provide much valuable Information In-formation for the future. Any sort of notebook will serve the purpose, and it would be better If it is small enough to go in your tackle box. With It there, you'll probably take the time to note Important data which you might not do after getting home and storing your gear away. It la well to record weather, direction direc-tion of the w:"J |