132 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



forests on still higher ground beyond, or perhaps into neglected pastures choked 

 with intermingling young balsams, red spruces, and white spruces no more 

 than eight or ten feet tall. Nor are they unknown to appear well out in rather 

 wide upland clearings, where the only available cover consists of thickets of 

 raspberry bushes, or even in river— or brook — meadows, where it is furnished 

 solely by rank grass. Ramblings, thus venturesome, are exceptional, of course, 

 and undertaken, I believe, at no seasons other than late summer and early 

 autumn, when the lowly vegetation that clothes such perfectly treeless ground 

 is most luxuriant, and also best supplied with berries or insects of various 

 kinds ; these Spruce Partridges devour eagerly whenever, and wherever, they 

 can obtain them readily, although subsisting during the greater part of the 

 year on a nearly unmixed diet of spruce and balsam spills (leaves), plucked 

 mostly from branches at least fifteen or twenty feet above the ground. 



Courtship. — William Brewster (1925) gives a slightly different 

 account of this from what others have given; he relates Luman 

 Sargent's experience with it, as follows: 



Many years ago he was skirting a dense swamp, when his attention was 

 attracted by a peculiar whirring sound that came from it. Advancing cau- 

 tiously he soon perceived two Spruce Partridges, cock and hen, together on the 

 ground. The cock left it presently, and vibrating his wings with great rapidity 

 began mounting upward in a spiral course around the trunk of a large balsam, 

 producing all the while a continuous drumming sound. After rising to a height 

 of about 20 feet, and making three or four complete turns around the stem of 

 the tree, he alighted on one of its branches where he rested for a moment or 

 two and then flew down just as he had risen, that is by circling spirally around 

 the trunk, with the same uninterrupted sound of wings. On reaching the spot 

 where he had left his mate, he strutted about her like a Turkey cock, with wide- 

 spread tail. Luman saw all this repeated fifteen or twenty times. For the 

 first 10 feet above its base the trunk of the balsam was smooth and bare, but 

 above that the Partridge had to conduct his drumming flights, both upward and 

 downward, through numerous stiff branches. The sound of his drumming was 

 distinctly audible at least 50 yards away. 



Watson L. Bishop's account, quoted by Bendire (1892), of the 

 display of a male bird in captivity is as follows : 



The tail stands almost erect, the wings are slightly raised from the body 

 and a little drooped, the head is still well up, and the feathers of the breast 

 and throat are raised and standing out in regular rows which press the feath- 

 ers of the nape and hind neck well back, forming a smooth kind of cape on 

 the back of the neck. This smooth cape contrasts beautifully with the ruffled 

 black and white feathers of the throat and fore breast. The red comb over 

 each eye is enlarged until the two nearly meet over the top of the head. This 

 comb the bird is able to enlarge or reduce at will, and while he is strutting 

 the expanded tail is moved from side to side. The two center feathers do not 

 move, but each side expands and contracts alternately with each step as 

 the bird walks. This movement of the tail produces a peculiar rustling, like 

 that of silk. This attitude gives him a very dignified and even conceited 

 air. He tries to attract attention in every possible way, by flying from the 

 ground up on a perch, and back to the ground, making all the noise he can 

 in doing so. Then he will thump some hard substance with his bill. I have 

 had him fly up on my shoulder and thump my collar. At this season he is 

 very bold, and will scarcely keep enough out of the way to avoid being stepped 



