40 GROUSE AXD WILD TURKEYS OP UNITED STATES, 



of bluebeiTV (Vaeciniur/i) and horsetail (Equisefxm). The Alaska 

 spruce grouse, according to Dr. W. H. Dall, was found at Nulato in 

 winter feeding: exclusively on the buds of willow." 



The flesh of the spruce grouse is dark and for the table is in no way 

 comparable to that of the blue grouse. Xor is the bird equal to the 

 latter as an object of sport. It is, however, a thing of beauty in the 

 dark northern coniferous forests, where its aesthetic value must impress 

 every lover of nature. This grouse is strictly a forest bird, and no- 

 where appears to come into contact with agriculture. 



THE FRANKLIN GROUSE. 



( Canach ites franklin i. ) 



The Franklin grouse is ver}^ similar to its near relative, the spruce 

 grouse, and difters mainly in the conspicuous white marking on its 

 upper tail coverts and in lacking the rufous tip to the tail. It is 

 found in the mountains of western IMontana and Idaho, westward to 

 the coast ranges of Oregon and Washington and northward through 

 British Columbia to southern Alaska. Major Bendire records 

 that nidification occurs during the last of May and in June. The 

 food habits of the bird are similar to those of the spruce grouse. In 

 Alberta. l)etween August 25 and September 1, 1804. J. A. Loring. a 

 field agent of the Biological Survey, examined the crops of several 

 l^ranklin grouse and found in them berries and leaves. A. H. How- 

 ell, also of the Survey, examined crops and gizzards in Idaho during 

 the last of September. 1895, and found in them large quantities of the 

 leaves of the lodge-pole pine {Phi us murrayana) broken into bits 

 from one-fourth to three-fourths of an inch long. Major Bendire 

 notes that in summer they furnish Indians and packers with 

 their principal supply of fresh meat. Their flesh is palatable then 

 because they eat grasshoppers and berries and feed less freely on the 

 buds and leaves of spruce and tamarack.^ 



Hon. Theodore Roosevelt writes of this bird in Montana : " 



The mountain men call this bird the fool-hen : and most certainly it deserves 

 the name. The members of this particular flock, consisting of a hen and her 

 three-parts grown chicks, acted with a stupidity unwonted even for their kind. 

 They were feeding on the ground among some young spruce, and on our 

 approach flew up and perched in the branches, four or five feet above our heads. 

 There they stayed, uttering a low complaining whistle, and showed not the 

 slightest suspicion when we came underneath them with long sticks and knocked 

 them off their perches. 



a Nelson. Nat. Hist. Coll. Alaska, p. 130. 1887 (1888). 

 6 Life Hist. X. A. Birds, [I], p. 58. 1892. 

 c The Wilderness Hunter, p. 116, 1893. 



