MAKES A DELICIOUS GRILL. 301 
when bowled over and erilled. Though his 
flesh is brown, yet for delicacy of flavour—game 
in every sense of the word—I’ll back him against 
any other bird in the Western wilds. This grouse 
appears to replace the Prairie-hen (Cupidonia 
cupido) on all the prairies west of the Rocky 
Mountains. By the fur-traders it is called the 
‘spotted chicken’; for all grouse, by the traders 
and half-breeds, are called chickens! and desig- 
nated specifically by either habit or colour—such 
as blue chickens, wood chickens, white chickens 
(ptarmigan ), &c. &c.; the skis-kin of the Kootanie 
Indians. 
The tail is cuneate and graduated, and about 
two-thirds the length of the wing ; the central 
pair, considerably longer than the rest, terminate 
in a point—hence the name sharp-tailed. 
The singular mixture of colours (white, black, 
and brownish-yellow), the dark blotches, trans- 
verse bars, and V-shaped marks of dark-brown, 
exactly resemble the ground on which the bird is 
destined to pass its life. ‘The ochreish-yellow 
angular twigs and dead leaves of the Artemisia, or 
_wild-sage ; the sandy soil, dried and bleached to 
a dingy-white ; the brown of the withered bunch- 
grass ; the weather-beaten fragments of rock, clad 
in liveries of sombre-coloured lichens, admirably 
