300 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



night. Here while the cruel wind sweeps across the plains and the ther- 

 mometer ofttimes registers in the minus forties, they remain cuddled snugly 

 away from the bitter night-world. 



CENTROCERCUS UROPHASIANUS (Bonaparte) 

 SAGE HEN 



HABITS 



The recent American Ornithologists' Union check lists, both old 

 and new, call this the sage hen, but I prefer to call it a grouse, as 

 it really is and as it was called in earlier editions. I see no reason 

 for calling it a hen, except that the cackling notes of the female 

 remind one of that familiar domestic fowl. It is a true grouse and 

 a grand one, by far the largest of our American species and the 

 largest in the world except the European capercaillie, which far 

 exceeds it in size. A fully grown sage-grouse cock is said to weigh 

 as much as 8 pounds, but the hen will not weigh more than 5 pounds, 

 probably both usually weigh much less. 



It was discovered by Lew r is and Clark about the headwaters of 

 the Missouri River and on the plains of the Columbia ; they named 

 it " cock of the plains " and gave the first account of it. The tech- 

 nical description of it and the scientific name, urophasianus, were 

 supplied by Bonaparte in 1827. 



The range of the sage grouse is limited to the arid plains of the 

 Northwestern States and the southwestern Provinces, where the sage- 

 brush (Artemisia triclentata and other species) grows; hence it is 

 well named sage grouse or cock of the plains. Its range stops where 

 the sagebrush is replaced by greasewood in the more southern deserts. 

 Like the prong-horned antelope, another child of the arid plains, it 

 has disappeared from much of its former range, as the country 

 became more thickly settled and these large birds were easily shot. 

 It has been said that the sage was made for this grouse and this 

 grouse for the sage, where it is thoroughly at home and where its 

 colors match its surroundings so well that it is nearly invisible while 

 squatting among the lights and shades of the desert vegetation. It 

 seldom wanders far from the sagebrush, but may be found occa- 

 sionally in the shade of the narrow line of trees that marks the 

 course of some small stream. D wight W. Huntington (1897) de- 

 scribes its haunts very well, as follows : 



I found the Sage Grouse most abundant in the vicinity of Fort Bridger and 

 south to the Uintah Mountains. Here the tufted fields of the gray-green sage 

 sweep up to the sides and walls of the adjacent " bad lands," or buttes, devoid 

 of vegetation but beautiful in color and fantastic in form. The buttes are 

 strangely fashioned by erosion, and are full of the fossil remains of animals 

 and fishes. Numerous domes, spires, and pinnacles surmount the buttes and the 

 conglomerate layers running about them have been compared to Egyptian carv- 



