258 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
grass and the leaves of various plants, form their 
chief food. I have seen them feeding by hundreds 
in the alfalfa patches of the ranchmen, and have found 
their crops and throats stuffed with the green leaves, 
together with a few of the seeds. Almost everything 
in the nature of berries, insects, seeds and green leaves 
is devoured by this bird. 
In the winter and autumn, the sharp-tailed grouse 
inhabiting a prairie country, spend most of their time 
in the river bottoms, among or close to the willow and 
cottonwood trees, on the buds of which they feed at 
this season, and it is not uncommon to see large flocks 
of them roosting among the branches of these trees 
in the early morning, apparently too much chilled to 
notice the approach of man. 
Mr. E. E. Thompson, in his “Birds of Manitoba,” 
describes in some detail the habits of the sharp-tailed 
grouse in winter. He says that it spends the winter 
nights in the snow, which is always soft and penetrable 
in the woods, though out on the plains it is beaten into 
drifts of ice-like hardness. 
“As the winter wanes, it is not uncommon for a snow 
storm to be accompanied by sleet. The storm always 
drives the chickens into the drifts, and afterward levels 
the holes they formed in entering. The freezing of the 
sleet then forms a crust, which resists all attempts at 
escape on the part of the birds, many of which, accord- 
ing to the account of hunters, are starved and thus 
perish miserably. I met with a single instance of this 
myself. 
