386 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



very rarely to be met with. For the space of a week, he watched 

 her closely, to discover whether she still refused to drink ; but, 

 though she was constantly fed on Indian corn, the cup and water 

 still remained untouched and untasted. Yet no sooner did he 

 again sprinkle water on the bars of the cage, than she eagerly and 

 rajiidly picked them off as before. 



" The last, and probably the strongest, inducement to their 

 preferring these plains is the small acorn of the shrub oak, the 

 strawberries, huckleberries, and partridge-berries, with which they 

 abound, and which constitute the principal part of the food of these 

 birds. These brushy thickets also afford them excellent shelter, 

 being almost impenetrable to dogs or birds of prey. 



" In all these places where they inhabit, they are, in the strict- 

 est sense of the word, resident ; having their particular haunts and 

 places of rendezvous (as described in the preceding account), to 

 which they are strongly attached. Yet they have been known to 

 abandon an entire tract of such country, when, from whatever 

 cause it might proceed, it became again covered with forest. A 

 few miles south of the town of York, in Pennsylvania, commences 

 an extent of country, formerly of the character described, now 

 chiefly covered with wood, but still retaining the name of Barrens. 

 In the recollection of an old man born in that part of the country, 

 this tract abounded with Grouse. The timber growing up, in 

 progress of years, these birds totally disappeared ; and, for a long 

 period of time, he had seen none of them, until, migrating with his 

 family to Kentucky, on entering the Barrens, he, one morning, 

 recognized the well-known music of his old acquaintance, the 

 Grouse, which, he assures me, are the very same with those he 

 had known in Pennsylvania. 



" But what appears to me the most remarkable circumstance 

 relative to this bird is, that not one of all those writers who have 

 attempted its history have taken the least notice of those two 

 extraordinary bags of yellow skin which mark the neck of the 

 male, and which constitute so striking a peculiarity. These appear 

 to be formed by an expansion of the gullet, as well as of the exte- 

 rior skin of the neck, which, when the bird is at rest, hangs in 

 loose, pendulous, wrinkled folds along the side of the neck ; the 

 supplemental wings, at the same time, as well as when the bird is 



