302 THE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 



harmonise with the colours in which Nature 

 has wisely robed this feathered tenant of the 

 wilderness. 



Often, when the sharp crack of the gun, and the 

 ping of the fatal leaden messengers, has rung the 

 death-peal of one of these prairie-chiefs, I have 

 watched the whirring wing drop powerless, and 

 the arrowy flight stop in mid-career, and, with 

 a heavy thud, the bird come crashing down. 

 Rushing to pick him up, and keeping my eye 

 steadily on the spot where he fell, I have felt 

 a little mystified at not seeing my friend : here 

 he fell, I am quite sure ; so I trudge up and down, 

 circle round and round, until a slight movement 

 an effort to run, or a dying struggle attracts 

 my attention, and then I find I have been the 

 whole time close to the fallen bird. But so 

 closely do the back and outspread wings re- 

 semble the dead foliage and sandy soil, that it 

 is almost impossible for the most practised eye 

 to detect 1 these birds when crouching on the 

 ground; and there can be no doubt that it as 

 effectually conceals them from birds of prey. 



This bird is abundantly distributed on the west- 

 ern slope of the Rocky Mountains, ranging right 

 and left of the Boundary-line, the 49th parallel 

 of north latitude. It is particularly abundant 



