. THE TRYSTING-SPOT. 39 
tains, its very near relative, Bonasa umbellus 
(Steph.), again ranges through Canada—indeed, 
I may fairly say, over the greater part of America. 
But what follows applies to Baird’s new species, 
found only west of the Rocky Mountains. 
The habits of this grouse are singularly er- 
ratic, and his food is of the most varied cha- 
racter. In the spring-time his favourite haunt 
is by the side of some stagnant pool, or in the 
brush round a marsh where the crab-apple 
(Pyrus rwularis) and the black-birch and alder 
grow, where fallen timber lies crumbling and 
rotting away; where everything mouldy, dark, 
damp, and oozy seems to hold high festival; 
where flabby fungoid growths spring like huge 
ears from moist-decaying wood, and gigantic 
agarics sprout up in a night ike mammoth fairy 
tables; here, too, the skunk cabbage, with its 
great green succulent leaves, grows in rank luxu- 
riance, covering up the surface of the mud like a 
huge mat. 
In such spots as these, in the month of April, 
the wooing begins. They regularly pair, and 
having once exchanged the nuptial promise, are, 
I think, most constant,to each other during the 
nest-building and hatching time. During the 
time of pairing, and at intervals after the 
