PRAIRIE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE 299 



Winter. — Seton (Thompson, 1890) writes: 



During the summer the habits of the chickens are eminently terrestrial ; they 

 live, feed, and sleep almost exclusively on the ground ; but the first snow 

 makes a radical cL^inge. They now act more like a properly adapted perch- 

 ing bird, for they spend a large part of their time in the highest trees, flying 

 from one to another and perching, browsing, or walking about among the 

 branches with perfect ease, and evidently at this time preferring an arboreal 

 to a terrestrial life. When thus aloft they are not at all possessed of that feel- 

 ing of security which makes the similarly situated Ruffed Grouse so easy a 

 prey to the pothunter. On the contrary, their perfect grasp of the situation 

 usually renders them shy and induces them to fly long ere yet the sportsman 

 has come near enough to be dangerous. Like most of the members of its 

 family, the Prairie Chicken spends the winter nights in the snow, which is 

 always soft and penetrable in the woods although out on the plains it is beaten 

 by the wind into drifts of ice-like hardness. As the evening closes in the birds 

 fly down from the trees and either dive headlong into a drift or run about a 

 little and select a place before going under. The bed is generally about 6 

 inches from the surface and a foot long from the entrance. Each individual 

 prepares his own place, so that a flock of a dozen chickens may be scattered 

 over a space of 50 yards square. By the morning each bird's breath has 

 formed a solid wall of ice in front of it, so that it invariably goes out at 

 one side. The great disadvantage of the snow bed is, that when there the 

 birds are more likely to become the prey of foxes and other predaceous animals, 

 whose sagacious nostrils betray the very spots beneath which the unsuspecting 

 bird is soundly slumbering. I am inclined to think this is the only chance 

 a fox has of securing one of the old birds, so wary are they at all other times. 



Laing (1913) says: 



The question of winter food is never a big problem with these grouse. 

 There is always an abundance of hawthorn hips, rose fruit, snowberries, or 

 other winter-cured fruits; in addition to these, edible buds of many kinds, 

 are in abundance. Best of all, they seem to relish the sweetish, frost-rip- 

 ened berries of the dwarfish snowberry that peep above the snow just far 

 enough to invite picking. Of the tree-buds, poplar, willow, and dwarf birch 

 are winter staples, and these are consumed in great quantities. The quest 

 of wheat in winter frequently leads these grouse to come right into the 

 towns. They first took this bold step after finding wheat dropped along the 

 roads and railway. As the clue led in the direction of the big red elevators, 

 they followed it in at first, but soon needed no grain trail by way of invi- 

 tation. They were quick to learn that they were not molested in the winter, 

 and indeed received a ready welcome. The daily itinerary of this flock in 

 mid-winter is about as follows : With the first peep of dawn they leave their 

 snow beds and mount to the tops of the willows and poplars, close at hand. 

 At sunrise or a little before it, they whizz off into town and scatter around 

 the various feeding grounds mentioned above. About ten o'clock they usually 

 take a run out along the railway track, evidently to get a supply of gravel; 

 then they return to spend the warm part of the day in the scrubby sand- 

 hills. Here they sit about in the sun, and pick a few buds; or if the day 

 is very cold and the snow light and deep, they burrow for their noon-day nap. 

 At three o'clock they return to their feeding-place of the morning, and then 

 shortly before sundown go back to the scrub to make their beds for the 



