[405] 
ie PRA IR Te Coa Kk FN, 
OR SHARPTAILED GROUSE. 
(Pedioecetes Phasianellus). (Baird). 
BY ERNEST E. T. SETON. 
For brevity I may describe it as a grouse, mottled above and 
white below, pretty much like all the family, but wnlike in having 
the tail feathers very stiff and so short that the upper coverts ending 
in a point project beyond the quill feathers. Hence the name 
“ Sharptail,” or more commonly “ Pintail,” though throughout this 
country it is most known as the “ Prairie Chicken.” 
To avoid that most tedious and thankless task, a detailed verbal 
description, I forward herewith a stuffed specimen, a female, but there 
is little difference between the sexes. The males have bright yellow 
bare skin over the eye (not red, as say Wilson and Audubon), and on 
each side of the neck a bare airsac, blue, and about the size of a 
pigeon’s egg. These connect with the mouth, for they can be in- 
flated by blowing down the throat. When the bird is quiescent 
they are merely sunk under the surrounding feathers, which are not 
in any way specially developed to hide them, as in the Ruffed and 
Pinnated Grouse. In the breeding season they are in a state of 
chronic inflation and brilliancy. 
The females differ only in having their bare skin ornamentations 
much less (not absent, as I have seen stated). The young of both 
sexes are indistinguishable from the female or the male in non- 
breeding season, except that they are a little smaller, and have the 
hair-like feathers on the feet shorter and more marked with dusky. 
In the feathering of the legs this grouse comes just between the 
Ruffed Grouse of the South and the Ptarmigan of the North, as 
does the bird itself geographically. The feathering stops at the 
base of the toes, but by reason of its length the toes are half hidden. 
Their toes, as in all grouse, are notably pectinated. Not having 
heard of any use for these combs, I append a few observations. In 
