SIEERA GROUSE 549 



regular air passages. Belding (1879, p. 438) says that when alarmed 

 in a tree the birds utter a note resembling the syllables kuk, kuk. 

 W. P. Taylor (MS), and other observers, report that females with 

 young are wont to cluck and cackle, showing anxiety by restless actions, 

 sometimes even flying repeatedly at the intruder. 



The nesting season of this species extends from about the middle 

 of May to the latter part of June. The earliest instance of nesting 

 in California as far as known to the authors is May 14, 1902, at 

 Denison Springs, Lake County, six miles north of Clear Lake, where 

 a set of seven slightly incubated eggs was taken (Mus. Vert. Zool.), 

 A downy young taken July 8, 1911, on the North Fork of Coffee 

 Creek, Trinity County (Mus. Vert. Zool.), altitude 4,500 feet, was 

 not much over a week old, which would indicate that the brood of 

 which it was a member hatched about the first of July. Our present 

 information does not indicate that a great difference in the time of 

 nesting is caused by variations in elevation or latitude, although it 

 is possible that the southern birds nest slightly earlier. 



The nest is usually situated in a protected situation on a well 

 drained dry hillside. The shelter of a small tree or slightly over- 

 hanging rock or log is often sought. The nest proper consists of a 

 slight depression in the ground, sparingly lined with dry grasses, 

 leaves, twigs, and often with feathers from the female. A nest found 

 by Swarth (Mus. Vert. Zool.) June 9. 1912, in Onion Valley, 8,500 

 feet altitude. Sierra Nevada, Inyo County, was situated about three 

 hundred feet above the canon stream, on a hillside covered with 

 manzanita and chinquapin but destitute of any large timber. It 

 was placed on the bare ground on the north side of a slightly over- 

 hanging rock where there was a narrow strip of bare ground between 

 the rock and the nearest brush. The nest cavity was a slight depres- 

 sion, scantily lined with dry twigs and feathers. The nest at Deni- 

 son Springs, Lake County (see above), was a slight hollow under a 

 young pine shoot and lined only with a few feathers. 



The Sierra Grouse lays from five to seven eggs, rather less than 

 its northern relative, the Sooty Grouse, which as Dawson (1909, p. 

 571) says, usually lays from six to twelve eggs while as many as six- 

 teen have been recorded in a single nest. The eggs of the Sierra Grouse 

 measure, in inches, 1.96 to 2.14 by 1.34 to 1.45 and average 2.03 by 

 1.39 (two sets, twelve eggs, from California). The ground-color is 

 pale creamy buff, and the surface is marked with dots and round 

 spots of reddish brown, usually very small and uniformly distributed, 

 but at times larger and more unevenly grouped. The large size of the 

 eggs, their fine pattern of markings, and the type of country in 

 which they are found, make their identification easy. There is no 

 other species of bird nesting in similar situations 'in the Sierras whose 



