BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 159 



Mille Lacs, where there is more or less spruce. In a conversa- 

 tion with Mr. E. O. Garrison, of this latter place, he said that 

 from 1865 to 1868, the Spruce Partridge was quite common 

 about the lake, frequenting the spruce groves. He often met 

 with covies of six or more in his walks, and found them nest- 

 ing on mossy hummocks among the spruce. Since then, how- 

 ever, they seem to have been exterminated in that locality. 

 They are such a stupid bird, so very tame that they form an 

 easy mark for the arrow of the young Indian boy. They are 

 often captured alive by a noose fastened to a short pole. " 



It is represented to be common north of Mille Lacs, and gen- 

 erally throughout the evergreen sections of northern Minne- 

 sota. Its habits exempt it from all suspicions of enmity to 

 agriculture in its widest sense. In confinement it fattens 

 quickly upon food that makes its flesh acceptable even to the 

 daintiest epicures 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Tail sixteen feathers; feathers above banded distinctly with 

 plumbeous; beneath uniform black, with a pectoral band of 

 white and white on the belly; chin and throat above black; tail 

 with a broad brownish-orange terminal band. Prevailing 

 color in the male, black; each feather of the head, neck, and 

 upper parts generally having its surface waved with plumb- 

 eous-gray in the form of two or three well defined concentric 

 bars parallel to each other, one along the exterior edge of the 

 feather, and the others behind it; sides of the body, scapulars, 

 and outer surface of wings mottled like back, but more irregu- 

 larly, and with a browner shade of gray, the feathers with 

 a central white streak expanding towards the tip (on the wing 

 these streaks are seen only on some of the greater coverts); no 

 white above except as described; under parts mostly uniform 

 black, feathers of sides of belly and breast broadly tipped with 

 white, which sometimes forms a pectoral band; a white bar 

 across the feathers at base of upper mandible, usually inter- 

 rupted above; a white spot on the lower eyelid, and a white 

 line beginning on the cheeks and running into a series of white 

 spots in the feathers of the throat; lower feathers of this are 

 banded terminally with whitish; feathers at base of bill, head, 

 below the eyes and beneath, pure black; quills dark brown, 

 without spots or bands, the outer edges only mottled with 

 grayish; tail feathers similar but darker, and tipped with a 

 band of orange-chestnut nearly an inch wide, obscured on the 

 central feathers; under tail coverts black, broadly barred and 

 tipped with white; the feathers of the legs mottled brown and 

 whitish; dirty white behind the tarsi; bill black. 



Length, 16.20; wing, 6.70; tail, 5.50. 



