3i6 CAMP-FIRES IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES 



relate only to certain birds which we saw, and positively 

 identified. We saw half a dozen species which we could 

 not identify. 



The Franklin Grouse, or " Fool-Hen " * is the first 

 game bird which greets the hunter as he enters the moun- 

 tains, and when he departs it is the last one to speed the 

 parting guest. As already recorded, we flushed about 

 twenty of these birds in the heavy jack pine forest of Elk 

 Valley, just below the Sulphur Spring. Later on we 

 found them elsewhere, up to an elevation of about 5,000 

 feet; but above that we saw no more of them. It is a bird 

 of the valleys and heavy timber, rather than of the moun- 

 tain-sides. 



The Sooty Grouse,t Blue Grouse or Pine Hen lives 

 higher up, but it is so rare we met with only two flocks. 

 At an elevation of about six thousand feet Charles L. 

 Smith killed a fine specimen by throwing a stone at it, 

 as it sat upon one of the lower branches of a tree. This 

 bird is a subspecies of the well-known Dusky Grouse of 

 the southern two-thirds of the United States west of the 

 great plains. In the Shoshone Mountains I found it 

 living close beside the mountain sheep, and almost fear- 

 less in the presence of man. 



Above the timberline, the White-Tailed Ptarmigan J 

 was delightfully common. On the evening of September 

 6, about an hour after the three goats ran past our camp- 

 fire on Goat Pass, four of these birds flew into our camp, 

 and created another diversion. Mr. Phillips shot one for 

 close examination, and as a small contribution to the 



* Ca-nach'i-tes franklini. f Den-drag' a-f us ob-scu'rus, \ La-go' f)us leu-cu'rus. 



