174 BULLETIN" 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



sometimes a grouse will move around to the opposite side of a tree from 

 the intruder. I have even been permitted to ride past a grouse within 5 feet. 

 At times, especially in autumn when they frequent the roads, the grouse often 

 run across in front of a horse and even apparently under his nose. I have seen 

 my horse almost step on a grouse. Sometimes they run ahead of my horse 

 down the trail. Even a mother with young is often extraordinarily tame, and 

 she does not make use of the broken-wing tactics nearly so often as unprotected 

 grouse do. Often a bird springs directly from the ground to a tree overhead 

 and allows me to pass directly under. Still, the gray ruffed grouse is not so apt 

 to come about houses and hotels as Richardson's grouse. 



BONASA UMBELLUS SABINI (Douglas) 

 OREGON RUFFED GROUSE 



HABITS 



In the humid coast belt, west of the Cascades, in Oregon, Wash- 

 ington, and British Columbia, we have the darkest, most richly 

 colored, and one of the handsomest races of the ruffed grouse. The 

 grouse of the southern Alleghenies are quite richly colored, but they 

 will not compare in this respect with these western birds, which 

 Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1905) describe as follows: 



The upper parts are dark orange chestnut, mottled with black, the cordate 

 light spots very distinct. The feathers of the breast are strongly tinged with 

 reddish-yellow; those of the sides marked with broad and conspicuous bars of 

 black, instead of the obsolete brown. The under tail-coverts are orange-chest- 

 nut, within distinct bars of black, and an angular terminal blotch of white. All 

 the light brown blotches and edgings of the eastern variety are here dark brown 

 or black. The jugular band between the ruffles is very conspicuously black. 



They say of its haunts, quoting J. K. Lord : 



Dr. Cooper also speaks of this grouse as very abundant everywhere about 

 the borders of woods and clearings. It was common near the forests east of the 

 Cascade Mountains up to the 49th degree. In the spring their favorite haunt 

 is in the vicinity of stagnant pools, or in the brush around a marsh in which 

 the wild swamp-crab, the black birch, and the alder grow. 



William L. Finley (1896) writes: 



They are generally found on low land, a river bottom or along some small 

 creek, but in times of high water, they will go to higher ground. I have often 

 seen them when the water is high, in some small tree or bush, when the water 

 was several feet deep under them, and around them for a half mile. In a boat, 

 at such times, one can row right under the bird, or within a few feet of it. 

 A great many are killed along the river bottoms in this way by hunters. 



Courtship. — The drumming performance of this grouse is appar- 

 ently the same as with the eastern birds, but "Mr. Lord also states 

 that he has seen the males of this species fighting furiously during 

 the pairing season. Ruffing up their necks, with their heads and 

 oacks almost in a straight line, and with wings dropped, they circle 

 round and round each other, striking and pecking until the van- 



