ALASKA SPEUCE GROUSE 129 



New York; southern Quebec, Ontario, and Manitoba; and northern 

 Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. It is now largely extinct in 

 the southern part of its range. Canachites c. osgoodi is found from 

 Great Slave Lake and Athabaska Lake west to the Yukon region 

 and the Mount McKinley Range of Alaska, while Canachites c. 

 atratus occupies the coast region of southeastern Alaska. 



Egg dates. — Central Canada (canadensis) : 8 records, May 23 to 

 June 14. Labrador Peninsula : 11 records, June 1 to July 4. 



Alaska (osgoodi) : 9 records, May 11 to June 25. 



Quebec to Nova Scotia and Maine (can-ace) : 21 records, May 5 to 

 June 24; 11 records, May 24 to June 2. 



CANACHITES CANADENSIS OSGOODI Bishop 

 ALASKA SPRUCE GROUSE 



HABITS 



The Alaskan form of the spruce grouse, or spruce partridge, was 

 discovered and described by Dr. Louis B. Bishop (1900) and named 

 in honor of his companion on the Yukon River trip, Dr. Wilfred H. 

 Osgood. He described it as " similar to Canachites canadensis but 

 with the ochraceous buff bars replaced everywhere by cream-buff 

 and grayish white. On the upper parts the gray tips are paler, the 

 ochraceous buff replaced by cream-buff and whitish, and the pale 

 bars of the cervix grayish white instead of buff ; below the white tips 

 are larger, the pale bars whitish and cream color instead of buff, 

 becoming cream-buff only on the jugulum." 

 Doctor Osgood (1904) says of its habitat: 



The range of the spruce grouse is practically coextensive with that of the 

 spruce tree. We traveled much of the time near the western limit of the 

 timber, and found grouse fairly common, even up to the edge of the tundra, 

 where the spruce was considerably scattered. The last one seen was a fine 

 cock, which was started very early on the morning of September 10, from a 

 small beach on the Nushagak River about 25 miles above its mouth. The 

 grouse are said to occur within a very few miles of Nushagak, however. 



Herbert W. Brandt contributes the following notes on his experi- 

 ence with this grouse in Alaska : 



The Alaska spruce grouse proved to be a common bird throughout the wooded 

 area that we traversed while en route to Hooper Bay. We first met with it 

 about 60 miles west of Nenana, and from that time thereafter, when we were 

 in the spruce areas, we were continually coming upon it. This noble fowl was 

 common in the spruce timber right up to the highest pine growth in the Beaver 

 Mountains, but its apparent preference is for the densely grown spruce river 

 bottoms. The " fool hen's " noted lack of fear was often in evidence, and its 

 retreating from ahead of our caravan often quickened the pace of the chase- 

 loving dogs. It proved to be much more arboreal in habits than the other 

 Alaskan gallinaceous birds we encountered, for we seldom saw it on the ground, 



