MAKES A DELICIOUS GKILL. 301 



when bowled over and grilled. Though his 

 flesh is brown, yet for delicacy of flavour game 

 in every sense of the word I'll back him against 

 any other bird in the Western wilds. This grouse 

 appears to replace the Prairie-hen (Cupidonia 

 cupido} on all the prairies west of the -Rocky 

 Mountains. By the fur-traders it is called the 

 4 spotted chicken' ; for all grouse, by the traders 

 and half-breeds, are called chickens ! and desig- 

 nated specifically by either habit or colour such 

 as blue chickens, wood chickens, white chickens 

 (ptarmigan), &c. &c. ; the skis-kin of the Kootanie 

 Indians. 



The tail is cuneate and graduated, and about 

 two-thirds the length of the wing ; the central 

 pair, considerably longer than the rest, terminate 

 in a point hence the name sharp-tailed. 



The singular mixture of colours (white, black, 

 and brownish-yellow), the dark blotches, trans- 

 verse bars, and V-shaped marks of dark-brown, 

 exactly resemble the ground on which the bird is 

 destined to pass its life. The ochreish-yellow 

 angular twigs and dead leaves of the Artemisia, or 



O O I 



wild-sage ; the sandy soil, dried and bleached to 

 a dingy-white ; the brown of the withered bunch- 

 grass ; the weather-beaten fragments of rock, clad 

 in liveries of sombre-coloured lichens, admirably 



