130 GAME BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 
females, assemble at some favorite place just as day is 
breaking, to go through a performance as curious as it is 
eccentric. The males with ruffled feathers, spread tails, 
expanded air sacs on the neck, heads drawn toward 
the back, and drooping wings (in fact the whole body 
puffed out as nearly as possible into the shape of a ball 
on two stunted supports), strut about in circles, not all 
going the same way, but passing and crossing each other 
in various angles. As the “dance” proceeds the excite- 
ment of the birds increases, they stoop toward the 
ground, twist and turn, make sudden rushes forward 
stamping the ground with short quick beats of the feet, 
leaping over each other in their frenzy, then lowering 
their heads, exhaust the air in the sacs, producing a hol- 
low sound that goes reverberating through the still air 
of the breaking day. Suddenly they become quiet, and 
walk about like creatures whose sanity is unquestioned, 
when some male again becomes possessed, and starts off 
on a rampage, and the “ attack”? from which he suffers 
becomes infectious and all the other birds at once give 
evidences of having taken the same disease, which then 
proceeds with a regular development to the usual con- 
clusion. As the sun gets well above the horizon, and 
night’s shadows have all been hurried away, the antics of 
the birds cease, the booming no longer resounds over the 
prairie, and the Grouse scatter in search of food, and in 
pursuit of their daily avocations. While this perform- 
ance is always to be seen in the spring, it is not unusually 
indulged in for a brief turn in the autumn, and while it 
may be considered as essentially a custom of the breed- 
ing season, yet like the drumming of the Ruffed Grouse, 
it may be regarded also as an exhibition of the birds’ 
vigor and vitality, indulged in at periods of the year even 
when the breeding season has long passed. 
