BIRDS. 135 



Order GALLING; Gallinaceous Birds. 

 Family ODONTOPHORID^E: Bob-whites, etc. 



Bob-white : Colinus virginianus virf/mianiis. — The bob-white of 

 the eastern lowlands seems a strange bird to find in Glacier Park, 

 but it has been introduced into the Flathead Valley, and Mr. Bryant 

 says has followed up the north and middle forks. Mr. Stevenson 

 has seen " a flock of twenty or more at Swan Lake, in the heart of a 

 wooded area at least 20 miles from the grain fields," and is inclined 

 to believe that the quail stray into the park at times, not only on 

 the North Fork but near Belton. 



Family TETRAONID^: Grouse, Ptarmigan, etc. 



Richardson Grouse: l>e)idrar/ap7ifi ohscun/s richardsoni. — The 

 large sooty grouse which bursts away noisily from before your 

 pack train as you climb np through the forest is common throughout 

 the heavily timbered higher regions of the park, and when camp- 

 ing in the mountains many broods will be met with. Up Midvale 

 Creek, back of Glacier Park Hotel, early in July we saw our first 

 l)ird of the season — an old hen, prol)ablT just off the nest, walking 

 (juietly along in the grass. She cocked her head, tweaked her tail, 

 and walked quickly away on finding herself discovered, but stood still 

 and did a little observing herself when talked to reassuringly. Two 

 of her feathers, one the double kind that give the northern grouse 

 warm body cover, were found in a scooped-out hollow in the trail, 

 showing where she had been dusting. About two weeks later, on 

 the Sexton Glacier trail, as we rode out of the dark woods the 

 peeping voices of young were heard, and as the first horse shied a 

 big mother grouse flew conspicuously into the top of a low ever- 

 green, while her brood, circling out on widespread curving wings 

 like young quail, disappeared under cover. Early in August, on the 

 Swiftcurrent, an old grouse and seven half-grown young, finding our 

 camp nearly deserted, walked calmly past the tents and under the 

 kitchen awning on their way to the creek. On reaching it the mother 

 flew across, calling the brood till they followed, when they all 

 walked off toward the blueberr}^ patch in the pine woods. On our 

 way to the Canadian boundary a number of broods of various sizes 

 wore flushed in the mountains. 



In the breeding season the males may be heard giving their ven- 

 triloquial hoot from the tops of high trees. The birds nest, Mr. 

 Gird says, on rocky ridges, and when flushed fly doAvn timbered 

 canyons. After the 1st of November he never looks for them in the 

 pine country, for they have gone to the red-fir timber in the deep 

 canA'^ons, he savs. whore thov live on tho needles dnrinor the winter. 



