288 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Egg dates. — Northern Canada: 12 records, May 1 to June 3; 6 

 records, May 16 to 21. 



Washington and Oregon: 9 records, April 6 to June 18. Mon- 

 tana: 5 records, May 19 to June 5. Alberta to Manitoba: 52 

 records, May 2 to June 22 ; 26 records, May 30 to June 11. Dakotas 

 and Minnesota: 27 records, May 2 to June 26; 14 records, May 19 

 to June 8. Colorado : 2 records, April 1 and May 8. 



PEDIOECETES PHASIANELLUS COLUMBIANUS (Ord) 

 COLUMBIAN SHARP-TAILED GROUSE 



HABITS 



This is the grayest of the three races of sharp-tailed grouse; the 

 northern race, typical phasianellus, is much darker, and the eastern 

 race, campestris, is more buffy or rufous. This western race inhabits 

 the lowlands of the Great Basin from the Rocky Mountains to the 

 Cascades and Sierra Nevadas. It was discovered by Lewis and 

 Clark on the plains of the Columbia River in 1805 and was named 

 by Ord in 1815. As it is not so widely distributed or so well known 

 as campestris, the reader is referred to the prairie sharp-tailed grouse 

 for the life history of the species. 



Major Benclire (1892) says of this grouse: 



It is one of the most abundant and best known game birds of the Northwest, 

 inhabiting the prairie country to be found along the foothills of the numerous 

 mountain chains intersecting its range ; seldom venturing into the wooded por- 

 tions for any distance, and then only during the winter months, when it is 

 partially migratory in certain sections. According to my own experience the 

 Columbian Sharp-tail breeds more frequently on the sheltered and sunny slopes 

 of the grass-covered foothills of the mountains than in the lower valleys and 

 creek bottoms. 



As to its past status in California, Grinnell, Bryant, and Storer 

 (1918) say: 



When Newberry, Cooper, Henshaw, and other early naturalists were mak- 

 ing observations upon the fauna of California, previous to 1880, they found 

 this species numerous in the plateau region northeast of the crest of the Sierra- 

 Cascade range. Since then, man's occupancy of that territory, and uncon- 

 trolled levy upon its birds for food or sport, has resulted in the apparently 

 complete disappearance of this species. They say : Coming north from San 

 Francisco, we first found it on a beautiful prairie near Canoe creek (near 

 Cassel, Shasta County), about fifty miles northeast of Fort Reading; subse- 

 quently, after passing the mountain chain which forms the upper canon of 

 Pit River, we came into a level, grass-covered plain, through which the wil- 

 low-bordered river flows in a sinuous course like a brook through a meadow 

 (probably near Lookout, Modoc County). On this plain were great numbers 

 of birds of various kinds, and so many of the sharp-tailed grouse, that, for two 



