SHARP-TAILED GROUSE 253 
sharp-tailed grouse (P. p. columbianus) is very 
much paler in color, being grayish or clay color and 
marked with black, but with the black marks less sharp 
and strong. It is found in central British Columbia 
and central Alberta, south in the western United States 
as far as northern California, Nevada and Utah, east 
to the border of the plains in Colorado. Its range is 
chiefly west of the Rocky Mountains. It is slightly 
smaller than the northern form. 
The more familiar sharp-tail of the Middle West 
(P. p. campestris) is abundant on the plains from 
southern Manitoba and southern Alberta, south through 
the United States to Wyoming and Kansas, east as far 
as Wisconsin and Illinois, and west to eastern Colo- 
rado. It is bright rusty in color and its dark mark- 
ings are much less conspicuous than in the northern 
form. 
The sharp-tailed grouse, which of late years has 
come to be known over much of the West as prairie 
chicken, is thus—in one or other of its three forms— 
a bird of wide distribution. It is found from Kansas, 
on the south, to central Alaska on the north, and from 
British Columbia, California and Nevada, on the west, 
to James’ Bay on the east. It occurs, as said, sparsely 
south of the Great Lakes, but in the United States— 
except in this locality—its range is chiefly west 
of the Mississippi River. While during the greater 
part of the year it seems to be a bird of the prairie, it is 
yet often found high up in little mountain valleys, and 
often in a country that is completely wooded. 
