136 BULLETIN 162, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Referring to its haunts and food, he writes : 



Spruce grouse were not abundant in the Prince William Sound region, but 

 appeared to be generally distributed. Two shot on Hawkins Island were both 

 in heavy timber near the beach. Their crops were filled with the fresh green 

 leaf-buds of spruce. On Hinchinbrook Island a male was shot on the moun- 

 tain side near timber-line. The example secured by Heller on Hoodoo Island 

 was flushed from a rank growth of salmonberry bushes ; its crop contained 

 berries, some fern fronds and a few seed pods of the devils-club. Grouse sign 

 was noted on Chenega Island ; and, as previously noted, skins were secured at 

 Knight Island and at the head of Port Nell Juan. 



CANACHITES FRANKLINI (Douglas) 

 FRANKLIN'S GROUSE 



HABITS 



This handsome species might well have been named the western 

 spruce grouse, for it is the western counterpart of the well-known 

 spruce grouse of eastern and northern Canada. It lives in similar 

 haunts, has similar habits, and is so closely related to the spruce 

 grouse that it may eventualty be shown to intergrade with some of 

 the western races of canadensis and be reduced to subspecific rank. 

 It occupies a comparatively limited range in the mountainous interior 

 of the Northwestern States and southwestern Canada. 



While stationed in Idaho, Major Bendire (1892) found these grouse 

 quite common 



along the edges of wet or swampy mountain valleys, the so-called " Camas 

 prairies," or the borders of the numerous little streams found in such regions 

 among groves or thickets of spruce and tamarack. Few naturalists have as 

 yet been sufficiently interested to invade their favorite haunts. In the sum- 

 mer of 1881 I found a single covey, numbering about ten birds, in the low 

 flat and densely timbered region between the southern end of Pend d'Oreille 

 Lake (the old steamboat landing) and Lake Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, at an alti- 

 tude not exceeding 3,500 feet, I should think. I bagged three of these birds, 

 and was quite surprised to find them in such a locality. As far as I have been 

 able to learn, they usually occurred only at altitudes from 5,000 to 9,000 feet, 

 and scarcely ever left the higher mountains. They were scratching in the 

 dust on the trail I was following, and simply ran into the thick underbrush 

 on each side, where they were quickly hidden. 



Courtship. — Thomas T. McCabe has sent me the following interest- 

 ing notes on the courtship of Franklin's grouse, as observed by him 

 and Mrs. McCabe in British Columbia on May 28, 1929: 



In the course of a morning's nest hunting in second-growth spruce and 

 balsam, carpeted with deep green moss, we had found the cock in his usual 

 locality, sitting quietly on a tussock, showing no erection of the crimson combs, 

 no inclination to display, and typically indifferent to us. An hour later and 

 a little before noon we were about 200 yards from this point, when he ap- 

 peared above us, flying through the tree tops, and lit in a spruce about 15 



