Vv PHASIANIDAE 2 
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Tympanuchus, while the eggs, from seven to seventeen in number, 
may be found placed in an excavation of the bare soil, or resting on 
a slight lining; they are drab or olive in colour, with roundish 
brown spots. What seems to be the ground colour is easily rubbed 
off before incubation commences, a fact noticeable in other Galline 
birds and Plovers. The Sage-Grouse reaches a considerable eleva- 
tion, as does the sage-brush, which gives its name to the bird. 
Tympanuchus americanus, the Prairie-hen, found in the 
districts drained by the Mississippi and its confluents, and thence 
northwards to Ontario, is brown above, barred with buff and 
black, and chiefly paler brown below, marked with white. The 
small crest is tipped with white, and a tuft of long, stiff, black 
feathers covers the inflatable yellow air-sacs on the sides of the 
neck, the sacs being absent and the tufts shorter in females. In 
spring parties assemble after daybreak on dry knolls, and conduct 
their love affairs after the fashion of the Dusky Grouse (p. 236), 
a booming noise being audible from afar, and the skin of the neck 
being expanded below the erected tufts. The cocks are most pug- 
nacious when the pairing-time is nearly over. Shoots of plants, 
berries, grain, acorns, and insects constitute the food. The flight is 
powerful and rapid, but individuals often run and squat. For a 
Grouse the nest is considerable; and from eleven to fourteen, or 
even twenty, creamy or olive-coloured eggs are deposited, with very 
small reddish-brown spots. 7. cupido, the Heath-Hen of the 
eastern United States, now only found on the island of Martha’s 
Vineyard, off Massachusetts, has smaller neck-tufts of pointed 
feathers, and more conspicuous whitish marks on the scapulars. 
7. pallidicinctus, the Lesser Prairie-Hen, ranging from Texas to 
Kansas, is barred with brown, margined on each side with black. 
Dendragapus obscurus, the Dusky, Blue, or Pine-Grouse of the 
Rocky Mountain districts, has black upper parts mottled with 
grey and a little brown, and pure grey under surface ; the female 
having a considerable admixture of buff, and the male possessing 
air-sacs like those of Zympanuchus. <A darker race, D. fuliginosus, 
extends the range to Sitka and California. Another northern form, 
which lacks the broad grey tail-band, is termed D. richardsoni. 
These birds frequent wooded ravines up to nine thousand feet, 
preferring the neighbourhood of water, and feeding as do their 
allies. The characteristic booming noise, common to this species 
and others, may be heard throughout the day in spring, the male 
