138 BULLETIN 162, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



pines; the hollow in the ground was lined with pine needles, weeds, 

 and other material that came handy. 



William L. Dawson (1896) describes a nest that he found in 

 Okanogan County, Wash., as follows : 



On the 2Sth of April, 1S96, I found a nest of this bird at an altitude of about 

 a thousand feet above Lake Chelan. It was placed in the tall grass, which 

 clothed the side of an inconspicuous "draw" bottom, and although the plough 

 had recently turned up the soil within five feet of her, the mother bird clung 

 to her post. I took several " snap shots " of her at close range, and she allowed 

 me to advance my hand to within a foot of her, when she stepped quietly off 

 the eggs and stood looking back at me over her shoulder. The nest was a 

 depression in the gravel-filled soil, lined with grass and dry corn leaves, besides 

 a few stray feathers ; depth 3 inches, width 7 inches. 



Eggs. — The eggs of Franklin's grouse are similar to those of the 

 spruce grouse; what few I have seen average more finely and more 

 evenly spotted with smaller spots, but practically all types can be 

 matched in a series of either. They are beautiful eggs and greatly in 

 demand by collectors. The measurements of 33 eggs average 42.7 by 

 31.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 45.1 by 

 30.2, 44.5 by 33, and 39 by 30 millimeters. 



Young. — Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1918) gives the following in- 

 teresting account of her experience with a brood of young in Glacier 

 National Park : 



A brood of three half-grown buffy-breasted and tailless young were seen in 

 the Waterton Valley about the middle of August, wandering around enjoyiuc,' 

 themselves in deep, soft-carpeted woods of spruce and fir, where they jumped 

 up to pick black honeysuckle berries from the low bushes, or answered their 

 mother's call to come and eat thimbleberries. One of them, which flew up on a 

 branch, also passed the time eating fir needles. When surprised by our appear- 

 ance the little fellows ran crouching down the trail showing a keen hiding 

 instinct, but their mother had little sense of danger. When the young were 

 approached she merely turned her head over and called mildly in soft remon- 

 strance. She was the genuine fool hen of Montana, we were told, whom the 

 Flatheads and the mountain Indians never kill except when in great need of 

 food, as the birds are so tame they can be snared at will, without ammunition : 

 as the Indians say, with string from a moccasin. 



The same brood, we supposed, was met with a few days later on the same 

 trail. One of the young was in the trail and the mother was sitting on a log 

 when we came up, but on seeing us she called the little ones into the bushes. 

 When driven out for a better view she climbed a bank adorned with bear grass. 

 dwarf brake, and linnaea carpet, and, stopping under a long drooping spray of 

 Streptopus — under whose light-green leaves hung beautiful bright red berries — 

 she jumped up again and again to pick off the berries. Then, flying up on a 

 fallen tree trunk almost over my head, she sat there looking very plump and 

 matronly and entirely self-possessed, while I admired the white and tawny 

 pattern of her plumage. She sat there calmly overlooking the brushy cover 

 where the young were hidden and showed no disapproval when the three came 

 out and walked a log by the trail. She called to them in soft, soothing tones 

 and they answered back in sprightly fashion. It would have been so easy to 



