SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 305 



seek : in winter they are confined to the buds and tops of evergreens, 

 or of birch and alder, but especially poplar, of which they arc very 

 fond. They are more easily approached in autumn than when they 

 inhabit large forests, as they then keep alighting on the tops of the 

 tallest poplars, beyond the reach of an ordinary gun. When disturbed. 

 in that position they are apt to hide themselves in the snow ; but 

 Hearne informs us that the hunter's chance is not the better for that, 

 for so rapidly do they make their way beneath the surface, that they 

 often suddenly take wing several yards from the spot where they en- 

 tered, and almost always in a difi'erent direction from that which is 

 expected. 



Like the rest of its kind, the Sharp-tailed Grouse breeds on the ground 

 near some bush, making a loose nest with grass, and lining it with 

 feathers. Here the female lays from nine to thirteen eggs, which are 

 white spotted with blackish. The young are hatched about the middle 

 of June ; they utter a piping noise, somewhat like chickens. Attempts 

 have been repeatedly made to domesticate them, but have as constantly 

 failed, all the young, though carefully nursed by their stepmother, th?f 

 common hen, dying one after another, probably for want of suitable 

 food. This species has several cries: the cock has a shrill crowing 

 note, rather feeble, and both sexes when disturbed, or whilst on the 

 wing, repeat frequently the cry of each, cack. This well known sound 

 conducts the hunter to their hiding place, and they are also detected by 

 producing with their small, lateral, rigid tail-feathers, a curious noise 

 resembling that made by a winnowing fan. When in good order, one 

 of these Grouse will weigh upwards of two pounds, being very plump. 

 Their flesh is of a light brown color, and very compact, though at the 

 same time exceedingly juicy and well tasted, being far superior in this 

 respect to the common Ruffed, and approaching in excellence the deli- 

 cious Pinnated Grouse. 



The adult male Sharp-tailed Grouse in full plumage is sixteen inches 

 long and twenty-three in breadth. The bill is little more than an 

 inch long, blackish, pale at the base of the lower mandible, and with ita 

 ridge entering between the small feathers covering the nostrils : these 

 are blackish edged with pale rusty, the latter predominating : the irides 

 arc hazel. The general color of the bird is a mixture of white, and 

 different shades of dark and light rusty on a rather deep and glossy 

 blackish ground : the feathers of the head and neck have but a single 

 band of rusty, and are tipped with white ; those however of the crown 

 are of a much deeper and more glossy black, with a single marginal spot 

 of rusty on each side, and a very faint tip of the same, forming a toler- 

 ably pure black space on the top of the head. The feathers between 

 the eye and bill, those around the eye above and beneath, on the sides 

 of the head, and on the throat, are somewhat of a dingy yellowish 



■Vol. III.— 20 



