Interior of British North America. 123 



crossed the watershed of the Rocky Mountains, and that, too, by 

 a pass hitherto untrodden by any white man. I was some dis- 

 tance ahead of my party, and on foot, having, as the descent was 

 rather steep, tied up the reins and stirrups and allowed my 

 riding-horse to follow along with the pack-animals ; and as I 

 proceeded along the Indian path, a Grouse rose and perched 

 itself on a projecting branch. My double rifle being over my 

 shoulder, a bullet through its body brought the bird to the 

 ground. It was in the female plumage, 13| in. in length, 7 in. 

 in the wing, with a hazel eye, and bright patch of vermilion over 

 it. I was at once struck with a certain dissimilarity to the 

 Canada Grouse, a bird I knew well ; and this was further 

 strengthened by finding, when it came to be cooked, that the 

 flesh was white, while any one who has lived in Canada or the 

 north-eastern States knows that the Spruce Partridge is dis- 

 tinguished from the " white-flesher" — the Birch Partridge or 

 Ruffed Grouse {Bonasia umbellus) — by the darkness of its flesh, 

 which has usually a very turpentine flavour, thought to be pro- 

 duced by the habit of feeding on spruce-leaves. On the 24th, 

 while still in the mountains, one of my men shot a male ; it was 

 not, however, in quite perfect plumage. Its breast was black, 

 with white spots at the ends of some of the feathers ; throat 

 nearly black, with an indistinct white line surrounding it ; and 

 there was not a sign of any colour but black in the tail-feathers ; 

 over the eye was bright scarlet; length 17 in., and wing 7\: 

 this bird had also been shot with ball, and therefore I did not 

 preserve it. On the day following we got amongst a covey, 

 and killed six of them ; but they were all young, except the old 

 female, which was minus her tail-feathers. They were just as 

 unsuspicious and stupid as the Canada Grouse, allowing them- 

 selves to be shot down ofl" the trees without making any attempt 

 to escape. As I was recrossing the mountains on the 3rd of 

 September, I managed to procure a pretty good female specimen 

 (' Ibis,' vol. iv. p. 8). It measured 15 in. in length, and Q^ in 

 the wing ; had the eye brown, bill dusky, and feet ash. I ob- 

 serve that Mr. Ross does not include Franklin^s Grouse among 

 the birds of the Mackenzie; and I may mention that there is an 



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