THE SAGE-COCK. 93 
on the right and left banks of the Columbia, 
to the Spokan river on the one side, and the 
Yakima on the other. 
These grouse live entirely on the open sandy 
plains, their principal food being the wild-sage 
(Artemisia), which imparts such a rank un- 
pleasant flavour to the flesh, that one might 
almost as well chew the bitter bush as eat 
any part of a sage-cock. It is almost impossible 
to obtain the cocks in full nuptial costume, 
when their necks are fringed with the most deli- 
cate pinnated feathers. The meeting of two 
cocks is sure to result in a fight, during which 
the greater part of these ornamental feathers are 
usually torn out. Unless the birds are killed prior 
to a hostile encounter their plumage is never 
perfect, as they only have these fine neck and 
back-plumes at mating-time. 
It is impossible for anyone to avoid being at 
once impressed with the extraordinary adapta- 
tion of the sage-cock’s colour to the localities 
in which it lives; the mottlings of brown, 
black, yellow, and white, are so exactly like the 
lichens covering the rocks, the stalks of the 
wild-sage, and the dried leaves, bunch-grass, 
and dead twigs scattered over the sandy wastes, 
that it is impossible to make them out to be 
