franklin's grouse 137 



feet from the ground and close to a pack trail. He still displayed no unusual 

 excitement, and we left him again for 15 minutes. When we came back the 

 hen had appeared and was squatting flat on the ground in the center of the 

 beaten trail. Her appearance was normal and remained so through the ensuing 

 episode. Perhaps 20 feet away the cock was walking down the trail toward 

 her in a typical attitude of display — head drawn up and back, tail spread 

 through two-thirds of a circle and vertical (not bent forward over the back), 

 the fine undercoverts falling back from it like the sticks of a fan, the wing 

 points slightly dropped, the combs bulged upward into elongate crimson rolls, 

 which met in the center of the cranium. In this guise he strutted very slowly, 

 with a statuesque pause of about 8 seconds every 2 or 3 feet. 



At a distance of about 10 feet the whole bird was transformed with the 

 suddenness of a conjuring trick, and the similarity to the courting ruffed 

 grouse disappeared. The tail snapped together and sank nearly to the ground. 

 The head was lowered and extended far forward. The plumage was flattened 

 so that a hard sleekness replaced the fluffy rotundity, and the size of the bird 

 diminished by half. The attitude was like that often assumed by Bonasa or 

 Lagopus when luring an intruder away from nest or young, but in place of 

 their whining note a low guttural was produced, vibrant and threatening, in 

 from 5 to 7 periods, the first two distinct and slow, the remainder losing interval 

 and less sonorous, trailing off to silence. This was accompanied by a slight 

 movement of the tail in the vertical plane, rather a periodic trembling than a 

 snapping like that of the courting Bonasa. One of us thought that with this 

 movement the rectrices were slightly opened. Between these utterances the 

 bird moved 3 to 6 feet, very slowly, and not in short runs after the manner of 

 Bonasa. The movements were in various directions, a few perhaps directly 

 toward the hen, but for the most part oblique and keeping 5 or 6 feet away. 



After about 4 minutes of this the hen took wing, silently, but with amazing 

 suddenness and speed for so phlegmatic a bird, flashed down the trail, and made 

 a quick turn into the woods. Her sudden start scarcely gained a foot on the 

 eager male, and both disappeared together. Perhaps a final scene was enacted 

 near by. Perhaps many more were set, with many variations, before the subtle 

 interplay of impulse and reaction rose to its climax. The details of the primi- 

 tive drama, with its suggestions of threatening, beseeching, lamenting, lie 

 beyond our power of interpretation, but, except in the opening movement, the 

 element of simple and lavish display, so widespread among other genera, was 

 absent. 



Nesting. — The nesting habits of Franklin's grouse are similar to 

 those of the spruce grouse. The eggs are very rare in collections, as 

 the nests have seldom been found, and very little has been published 

 about them. Major Bendire (1892) writes: 



Through the kindness of Mr. W. E. Traill, in charge of one of the Hudson 

 Bay Company posts in British Columbia, parts of three sets of these rare eggs, 

 fifteen in number, were collected during the season of 1890 ; taken on May 20, 

 27, and 30, respectively. The nests were shallow depressions in the moss-covered 

 ground, lined with bits of dry grass, and were placed at the borders of spruce 

 thickets. The eggs were fresh when found. 



A set of six eggs, fresh when taken on May 27, 1906, is in my col- 

 lection; it was taken by E. C. Bryant in Flathead County, Mont. 

 The nest was at the end of an uprooted tree among some lodgepole 



