738 



SYSTEMA TIC SYNOPSIS. — GALLIN.E — ALECTOROPODES. 



a few under tail-coverts spotted, the rest white ; upper tail-coverts nearly like rump. Iris light 

 brown; bill dark horn-color; part of under mandible iiesh - colored ; claws like bill; toes on 

 top liglit horn-color, soles darker. Length 18.00-20.00; extent 24.00-30.00; wing 8.00-9.00; 

 middle tail-feathers 4.00-6.00; shortest t;iil-feathers (outermost) about 1.50; tarsi 2.00; middle 

 toe and claw about the same; cuhnen of bill about 0.67; gape of bill 1.00-1.25; depth of bill 

 at base 0.50 or rather less. Pullets, before first moult : Crown bright brown, varied with black. 

 Sharp wliite shaft-lines above, which, with a black area on each feather, contrast with fine 

 gray and browu mottling of upper parts. Wing-coverts and inner quills with whitish spots. 



Several inner tail-feathers wdth whitish 

 shaft-lines, and mottled with blackish 

 and bi'own. Lower throat and breast 

 with numerous dark browu spots ; sides 

 similar, the markings lengthening into 

 streaks. Bill brown above, pale below. 

 This lasts till the September moult is 

 completed. Chicks hatch dingy yellow, 

 mottled on crown, back, and wings 

 with brown and black. The Pin-tail 

 Chicken inhabits the western portions 

 of Minnesota, southern Wisconsin, a 

 small part of Iowa and of Illinois, all of 

 both Dakotas, thence diagonally across 

 Nebraska and Kansas to Colorado in 

 the Laramie and upper Platte regions ; 

 thence westward in suitable country to 

 the Sierras Nevadas and Cascade Ranges 

 of Calif(jrnia, Oregon, and Washing- 

 ton; northern limit may be conven- 

 tionally taken along the N. border of 

 the U. S., beyond which it shades into 

 the true phasianellus ; but birds rather 

 referable to this form than to the Arctic stock reach N. through British Columbia to some 

 portions of Alaska. In fine, this is the "prairie chicken" of the whole Northwest; usually 

 occurring where Ti/mpanuchus americamis does not, though the two overlap to some extent. 

 Formerly ranged in all the prairie of Minnesota, Michigan, and Iowa, but is pushed westward 

 by the grain-fields — the same carrying Tympanuchus along, so that the one recedes as the 

 other proceeds westward. It is a fine game and table bird, like its near relative, much hunted 

 and easily killed ; its numbers have been materially reduced of late years, and its range east- 

 ward has contracted. The packs in which it goes in winter, sometimes by hundreds, break 

 up in early spring into the smaller "dancing-parties" which indulge in amorous revelry vuitil 

 such ribaldry results in matrimony, April-June; chicks are mostly able to tiy by midsummer. 

 Eggs 5-10-12-14-16, grayish-olive or drab-colored, uniformly dotted with brown points, rarely 

 larger than a pin-head; always quite different from those of Tympnnuchus ; 1.60 to 1.80 long 

 by 1.20 to 1.30 broad ; average 1.70 X 1-25. This bird was originally discovered and described 

 accurately by Lewis and Clark, who note that the scales fall off the toes in summer. They 

 found it abundant on the plains of the Columbia, 1805-6, whence it was named Phasianiis 

 columbianus by Ord in 1815; whence Pedicecetes phasianellus columhianiis Coues, 1872, and 

 all later editions of tlie Key. 



P. p. eampes'tris. (Lat. relating to a crt»?^?/s or [)lain.) Prairie Sharp-tailed Grouse. 

 Birds of those portions of the Sharp-tail's range E. of the Rocky Mts., as above given, have 



Fio. 495. — Head of Sharp-tailed Grouse, nat. size. (Ad. nat 

 del. E. C.) 



