614 APPENDIX. 



the sound produced by blowing into a cane. They nest on 

 the ground under the shelter of low bashes, or near streams 

 among the wild Canary Grass of this region. The nest is 

 made of dry grass and slender twigs. The eggs, from 13 

 to 17, about the size of those of the domestic fowl, are of a 

 wood-brown color, with irregular chocolate blotches at the 

 thick end. The period of incubation extends from 21 to 

 22 days ; and as in other birds of this active tribe, the young 

 run about and quit the nest in a few hours after being hatch- 

 ed. In summer and autumn, these large Grouse are seen 

 only in small numbers, pairs or families, but in winter and 

 spring, partially migratory, they are then seen in flocks of 

 several hundreds, roaming about in quest of food. They 

 are plentiful throughout the barren and arid plains of the 

 Columbia, as well as in the interior of North California, 

 but are no where seen to the east of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. 



Length of the male about 25 inches ; the bill above, 1 inch 7 lines. 

 In this sex the general color of the upper plumage is light hair-brown, 

 mottled and variegated with dark umber-brown and yellowish- white. 

 Each feather of the back has 3 equidistant bands of yellowish- white; 

 between these bars one of which is terminal, the hair-brown ground 

 is marked with small, irregular zig-zags of light hair-brown ; these 

 colors cross the shaft ; but on the wing-coverts and scapulars the 

 shafts are all marked by a narrow, conspicuous line of yellowish- 

 white. About 8 bands of this color on the tail, of different degrees 

 of intensity, with intermediate irregular zig-zag lines of the same. 

 The quills pale and almost unspotted. — Beneath white, and unspotted 

 on the breast and upper part of the body ; but dark umber approaching 

 to black on the lower half of the body and part of the flanks ; the 

 latter towards the vent are marked as the upper plumage. Under 

 tail-coverts black, broadly tipped with white. Throat and region of 

 tlie head varied with blackish on a white ground. The shafts of all 

 the feathers on the breast are black, rigid, and look like hairs. Bill 

 and toes blackish. Wings, in proportion to the size of the bird, very 

 short ; the lesser quills each ending in a small point. Tail rather 



