FAMILY TETRAONID. 
Tuis family contains the Quails, Partridges, and 
Grouse, and has its representatives in nearly every por- 
tion of the world. It has been subjected by different 
ornithologists to varying treatment and has at times been 
divided mto many subfamilies, but three have always 
seemed to me quite sufficient, two of which are repre- 
sented in North America. The three are: Perdicine, 
containing the Quails and Partridges of the Old World, 
having no representative in the Western Hemisphere; 
Odontophorine, the American Partridges, natives of the 
New World unrepresented in the Old World; and Tetra- 
onine, the Grouse and Ptarmigan found in both Hemi- 
spheres. 
They are all game birds, in the sense the sports- 
man. understands the term, and wherever their habitat 
may be, whether the elevated plateaus or gloomy defiles 
of high mountain ranges, or the plains and prairies of 
level lands, or the forests and thickets of the more 
attractive portions of the earth, the members of this 
family always exhibit the peculiar qualities found so em1- 
nently among gallinaceous birds, and afford the sport 
that so endears them to the hunter's heart. 
The New World possesses some of the largest and 
finest species of the family, many of which at one time 
were found within its limits in extraordinary abundance, 
and although they now exist in lessened numbers, and 
many districts in which they formerly abounded will 
know them no more forever, yet with proper laws, 
rightly enforced, a remnant may be saved for succeeding 
generations. 
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