HUDSONIAN SPRUCE GROUSE 123 



of the Labrador tea. It was under a moss- covered, dead, fallen spruce 

 branch beneath a low-branching green spruce. The sitting bird was 

 very reluctant to leave the nest." Another " nest was in a hollow 

 lined with dry leaves and spruce needles under a small spruce bush, 

 about 2 feet high, on the edge of a muskeg." 



Eggs. — [Author's note: The spruce grouse and its near relative, 

 Franklin's grouse, lay the handsomest eggs of any of the grouse. 

 Ten or a dozen eggs usually make up the set, but as many as 14 or 

 even 16 have been found in a nest. Sets of less than eight are proba- 

 bly incomplete. The eggs vary in shape from ovate to elliptical ovate. 

 The shell is smooth with a very slight gloss. The ground colors 

 vary from " cinnamon " to " pinkish buff," or from " cream-buff " 

 to "cartridge buff." They are usually boldly and handsomely 

 marked with large spots and blotches of rich browns, sometimes 

 more sparingly marked and sometimes thickly and evenly covered 

 with small spots and dots. The colors of the markings vary from 

 " chestnut-brown " or " chocolate " to " hazel " or " russet." One odd 

 set in my collection has a " cartridge buff " ground ; one egg is nearly 

 immaculate and the others are sparingly, or only slightly, spotted 

 with " bone brown." The measurements of 54 eggs average 43.5 by 

 31.7 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 47.1 by 

 34, 40 by 30.4, and 40.1 by 29.8 millimeters.] 



Young. — The duration of incubation is about 17 days, according 

 to Lucien M. Turner. Incubation is performed by the female and 

 she alone looks after the young. Bendire (1892) states that "an 

 egg is deposited every other day, and incubation does not begin until 

 the clutch is completed." Turner, however, states that " laying 

 begins about the fifth of June and incubation about the twelfth " in 

 Ungava. 



The young are able to run about and follow the mother almost as 

 soon as their feathers dry, and they are able to fly vigorously at an 

 early age, when they appear about a quarter of the size of the adults. 

 One of these young, a good flyer, that I collected at Shecatica Inlet, 

 Canadian Labrador, on July 23, 1915, measured 5 inches in length, 

 and its wing measured 3.5. The adult's length is about 13 inches and 

 the wing 6.5. On this occasion the brood of young startled me by 

 flying up with a slight whirring sound almost from under my feet. 

 They flew to the branches of a low spruce, while the mother appeared 

 most conspicuously, standing in a bed of curlew-berry vines and 

 reindeer lichen, with head up and tail erected. As a rule the young- 

 fly off and conceal themselves so thoroughly that it is difficult to flush 

 them again, while the mother, clucking and ruffling her feathers, 

 flies to a spruce tree or remains on the ground, in both cases allowing 

 an approach to within a few feet. On one occasion, when I was in 



