SIEREA GROUSE 115 



are much nearer to fuliginosus. On the other hand, I have no material prov- 

 ing continuity of range in sierrae and obscurus, and the character of the 

 country intervening between the nearest known portions of their respective 

 ranges would lead one to suppose that they do not intergrade geographically. 



It lives chiefly in the Canadian Zone and only locally in the Upper 

 Transition, ranging " upward into the Hudsonian Zone during late 

 summer," according to Grinnell and Storer (1924), who write: 



Acquaintance with the Sierra Grouse may begin in several ways, but rarely 

 does it come in the conventional manner through which we learn to know most 

 birds. Upon entering the Jeffrey pine and red fir forests of the Canadian Zone 

 in spring and early summer, one may often hear a very un-bird-like, dull sodden 

 series of booming notes that have a ventriloquial quality. These are the court- 

 ing notes of the male grouse. Less often, whatever the time of the year, the 

 introduction may come suddenly and much more impressively when, close at 

 hand, a heavy-bodied " blue grouse " rises quickly from the ground and makes 

 off through the forest on loudly whirring wings, and showing an expanse of 

 square-ended gray-banded tail. When a small flock of the birds get up, as 

 they often do, in rapid succession, or even simultaneously, the aggregate effect 

 is bewildering, to say the least. 



The Sierra Grouse lives in the high country throughout the year, never migrat- 

 ing to lower levels as does the Mountain Quail. The thick heavy plumage and 

 legs feathered clear down to the toes enable the grouse to withstand the cold 

 of the midwinter months ; while their ability to subsist on pine and fir needles 

 assures them at any season an abundance of food to be easily obtained without 

 seeking the ground. 



A. B. Howell (1917) says of its haunts: 



Although most of the published information pertaining to the Sierra Grouse 

 gives one the impression that these birds haunt the pines and associations of 

 scant undergrowth, my experience has been that they seldom resort to the 

 larger conifers except to roost, and to escape their enemies by remaining mo- 

 tionless in the upper branches. At least in the locality under consideration, 

 their favorite habitat is in the vicinity of dense aspen thickets, and the tangles 

 of manzanita, hazel and other brush on the dry hillsides and benches of the 

 high Transition Zone, from which they flush to the timbered ravines. 



Courtship. — Grinnell and Storer (1924) have described the boom- 

 ing courtship of this grouse very well, as follows : 



During the spring and early summer, the males are in the habit of taking 

 solitary positions near the tops of pines or firs, sixty or more feet above the 

 ground, where they stand on horizontal limbs close to the trunk. They hold 

 such positions continuously for hours, one day after another, and send forth at 

 intervals their reverberant booming. With different birds the series of notes 

 comprising this booming consists of from five to seven syllables, six on an 

 average. The quality of the sound can be likened to that produced by beating on 

 a water-logged tub, boont, boont, boont', boont', boont, boont, crescendo at the 

 first, diminuendo toward the end of the series. As each note is uttered the 

 tail of the bird is depressed an inch or two — perhaps an index to the effort 

 involved. The separate series of notes in two instances were uttered at in- 

 tervals of 40, 20, 25, 45, 12, 21, and 29 seconds, and again 10, 10, 20, 26, 14, 15, 

 17, 12, 11, 15, 13, 28, 17, and 11 seconds, respectively. These two birds had 

 been heard booming for a long time before we began to pay special attention 



