GROUSE. 209 



Lagopns leucurus, the white-tailed ptarmigan, inhabits the Rocky Mountains 

 from the Arctic Ocean to latitude 37; L. rupestris is found in Iceland, Greenland 

 and Arctic America, and L. mutus, the common ptarmigan, is met with in the higher 

 portion of the mountains of Scotland and northern Europe, and on the elevated 

 ranges of southern Europe. 



The genera Pedicecetes and Cupidonia comprise those grouse generally known as 

 sharp-tails, prairie-hens, or prairie-chickens. The first contains one species composed 

 of two geographical races, which, while differing considerably in appearance in indi- 

 viduals most widely separated in 'their habits, blend together when the two styles 

 meet at the border of their respective ranges. The northern form, whose markings 

 are mainly black, has a white throat spotted with black, and is known as P.pliasian- 

 ellus. It ranges in the interior of British America west to Fort Yukon, and south 

 nearly to the United States boundary, where it meets the well-known sharp-tail grouse, 

 or white-breasted prairie-chicken, which inhabits the northwestern portions of the 

 United States, and southwards to Colorado. 



The Cupidonia cupido, or common prairie-chicken, which at one time inhabited all 

 of the north-eastern part of the United States, is now only found from Illinois westward 

 to the eastern foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, and south to eastern Texas. A few 

 still linger in certain localities in the eastern states, notably on Martha's Vineyard, off 

 the coast of Massachusetts. In western Texas a small form, called C. pallidicinctus 

 takes the place of C. cupido. The habits of all these birds are very similar, and too 

 well known to need recapitulation here. They all possess gular sacs (the member 

 of Pedicecetes in a rather restricted degree), and by their inflation and contraction 

 cause the booming tones that resound over the prairies in the early spring. The sacs 

 in the members of the genus Cupidonia are covered by lengthened feathers, which are 

 raised when the bird is excited. From the continued persecution which the species 

 inhabiting the United States are subjected to by hunters and trappers, and the utter 

 disregard shown for the laws passed to protect them at certain seasons, they are yearly 

 becoming scarcer, and the time cannot be far distant when these fine birds will no 

 longer exist within our borders. 



The sage-cock, or cock-of-the-plains, Centrocercus uropliasianus, is the largest grouse 

 found in America, and nearly rivals in size the European cock-of-the-woods, but it 

 weighs much less, the heaviest male not often exceeding six pounds. The female, as 

 usual, is much smaller. It is dispersed over the western plains, in the almost desert 

 region where the Artemesia or wild sage grows, which plant affords the bird its prin- 

 cipal food, and consequently, from its bitter character, the flesh of this grouse is very 

 unpalatable. The sage-cock is chiefly remarkable for its lengthened tail of twenty 

 narrow, stiff feathers, which terminate in points, and also for the enormous air-sacs of 

 yellow skin, on either side of the neck, bordered by stiffened, scale-like feathers. 

 These sacs in the spring are inflated, and as the air is being exhausted a sound is 

 produced of a deep, hollow tone, like that arising from blowing into a large reed. 

 The upper parts are brown, varied with gray, black, and buff, and the under parts below 

 the breast are black, less noticeable in the female. Differing from other gallinaceous 

 birds, the sage-cock has no gizzard ; the stomach, instead of being hard and muscular, 

 is soft and membranous, as in the birds of prey. 



The generic term Tetrao was formerly employed for nearly all grouse except the 

 ptarmigan, but even in its restricted sense as used by later writers, some of its members 

 have been again separated either generically or at least sub-generically. Thus the 

 VOL. iv. 14 



