444 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



abundant and tame ; but where they are rare and wild they are seldom heard 

 after sunrise, and their meetings then are in silence. Even in the fall the 

 young males evince their natural pugnacity by engaging in short battles, 

 which their parents usually interrupt and put a stop to. 



This bird nests, according to the locality in which it is met with, from the 

 beginning of April to the last of May. In Kentucky, Mr. Audubon has found 

 their nests with eggs early in April, but the average period there was the first 

 of May. Their nests he describes as somewhat carelessly formed of dry 

 leaves and grasses, interwoven in a tolerably neat manner, and always very 

 carefully placed among the tall grass of some large tuft in the open ground 

 of the prairies, or, in barren lands, at the foot of a small bush. 



The eggs are said to be from eight to twelve in number, never more ; they 

 are larger and more spherical than those of the common umbellus, and are of 

 a darker shade. The female sits upon them about twenty days, and as soon 

 as the young can extricate themselves from the shell the mother leads them 

 away, the male having previously left her. 



Early in the fall the various broods begin again to associate together, and 

 at the approach of winter it is not uncommon to see them in flocks of several 

 hundred individuals. 



The young broods, when come upon suddenly and taken by surprise, in- 

 stantly scatter and squat close to the ground, so that, without a dog, it is im- 

 possible to find them. The mother gives a single loud chuck as a signal of 

 danger, and the young birds rise on the wing and fly a few yards in different 

 directions, and then keep themselves perfectly still and quiet until the mother 

 recalls them by a signal indicating that the peril has passed. In the mean 

 while she resorts to various devices to draw the intruder away from the 

 place. 



This Grouse raises but a single brood in a season ; and if the first laying has 

 been destroyed or taken, the female seeks out her mate, makes another nest, 

 and produces another set of eggs. These are usually smaller in size and less 

 in number than those of her first laying. 



The Pinnated Grouse is said to be easily tamed, and may be readily 

 domesticated, though I do not know that the experiment has been thoroughly 

 tried. Mr. Audubon once kept sixty of them in a garden near Henderson, 

 Ky. Within a week they became tame enough to allow him to approach 

 them without being frightened. He supplied them with abundance of corn 

 and other food. In tlie course of the winter they became so gentle as to feed 

 from the hand, and walked about his garden like so many tame fowl, mingling 

 occasionally with the poultry. In the spring they strutted, " tooted," and 

 fought as if in their wild state. Many eggs were deposited, and a number of 

 young birds were hatched out ; but they proved so destructive to the vegetables 

 that the experiment was given up and the Grouse were killed. The male birds 

 were conspicuous for their courage, and would engage in contest with the Tur- 

 key-cocks, and even with the dunghill cock, rather than yield the ground. 



