302 THE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 
harmonise with the colours in which Nature 
has wisely robed this feathered tenant of the 
wilderness. 
Often, when the sharp crack of the gun, and the 
ping of the fatal leaden messengers, has rung the 
death-peal of one of these prairie-chiefs, I have 
watched the whirring wing drop powerless, and 
the arrowy flight stop in mid-career, and, with 
a heavy thud, the bird come crashing down. 
Rushing to pick him up, and keeping my eye 
steadily on the spot where he fell, 1 have felt 
a little mystified at not seeing my friend: here 
he fell, I am quite sure; so I trudge up and down, 
circle round and round, until a slight movement 
attracts 
my attention, and then I find I have been the 
—an effort to run, or a dying struggle 
whole time close to the fallen bird. But so 
closely do the back and outspread wings re- 
semble the dead foliage and sandy soil, that it 
is almost impossible for the most practised eye 
to detect these birds when crouching on the 
ground; and there can be no doubt that it as 
effectually conceals them from birds of prey. 
This bird is abundantly distributed on the west- 
ern slope of the Rocky Mountains, ranging right 
and left of the Boundary-line, the 49th parallel 
of north latitude. It is particularly abundant 
