308 BULLETIN 162, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



birds, like others, often receive a flavor from their food, and when 

 the wild sage is their exclusive diet they have a more or less bitter 

 taste. When, however, the birds are young and have been feeding on 

 grasshoppers, their flesh is as good as that of the sharp-tails or prai- 

 rie-grouse." 



As to his method of hunting sage grouse, Huntington writes : 



My shooting of these birds was mostly done from the saddle while on the 

 march. When we flushed a covey of birds I took a shot at them, and marking 

 those that flew away to the particular bush where they settled, rode at once 

 to the spot and sometimes dismounted to shoot at the scattered birds. Upon 

 several occasions I went out with a friend especially to shoot them, riding 

 here and there (we had no dog) until the horse flushed a covey, and following 

 them so long as we could make them take wing. Birds often escaped by 

 hiding in the sage and refusing to fly. The most likely places seemed to be 

 depressions where the water evidently flowed in wet seasons and little knolls 

 adjacent, but we stumbled upon the birds almost anywhere in the sage, and 

 often made very good bags. It was next to impossible to miss one, since the 

 shots were always in the open and the marks large. The birds required hard 

 hitting, however, to bring them down, and I would not advise the use of 

 shot smaller than number 5 or 6. A wounded bird is difficult to recover without 

 a dog where the sage grows thickly, and I always tried to kill the birds outright. 

 The side shots, or those at quartering birds, are more likely to be fatal than 

 those at birds going straight away, since the shot then penetrates the lighter 

 feathers beneath the wings. 



Burnett (1905) says: 



The counties of Albany, Converse, Natrona, and Carbon are the places 

 where grouse are most abundant in Wyoming. A single hunter has been 

 known to kill a hundred birds in a day without a dog. The best hunting 

 is found over lands adjacent to springs, down green draws and the bottoms 

 along streams, and the best time to find coveys is in the morning or evening 

 when the birds are feeding. After feeding they hide either on the feeding 

 ground or at some distance from it where the sage is large enough to screen 

 them from enemies and the rays of the sun. 



Its large size, the ease with which it can be killed, and the accessi- 

 bility of its haunts combine to make this grouse a popular game bird 

 during summer and fall when its flesh is most palatable. Conse- 

 quently it is disappearing very fast, notably in California, Oregon, 

 and Washington, where the extension of good roads and the increase 

 in automobiles have made the sagebrush plains more accessible. To 

 save this fine bird from extinction, as civilization spreads, the open 

 season for shooting it must be shortened and the bag limits reduced. 

 Even then, it probably can not be saved except on protected reserva- 

 tions. 



Fall. — These grouse are usually resident throughout the year wher- 

 ever they are found; but on some of the elevated plateaus, in the 

 more northern portions of their range, the sagebrush, on which they 

 feed in winter, becomes buried under the snow; they are therefore 

 obliged to migrate in search of a food supply. 



