THE SOOTY GROUSE. 573 
on some prominent stump or bowlder. The bird, as a rule, is one of the most 
phlegmatic of fowls, and his courting antics, grotesque enough in themselves, 
are conducted with a gravity which makes them even more absurd. Whatever 
the bird’s situation in hooting, the air-sacs of the throat, chest, and neck, are 
first inflated. ‘These auxiliary parts are capable of enormous distension, inso- 
much that the total bulk of the sacs, together with their covering feathers, dur- 
ing excitement, exceeds that of the body itself. The hooting, or grunting 
notes, of this Grouse are among the lowest tones of Nature’s thorobase, being 
usually about C of the First Octave, but ranging from E, Flat down to B Flat 
of the Contra Octave. Hoot, hoot, hoot, tu-hoot, the legend runs, altho there 
Taken near Tacoma. Photo by the Author. 
A NEST IN THE FIR WOODS. 
is a prefatory note of the same character which is inaudible at a distance; and 
the bird not infrequently adds another at the end, after the slightest apprecia- 
ble pause, as tho he required a fraction of a second in which to recover from 
the effort of the double note. There is in the act of utterance a corresponding 
pulsation of the air sacs, but these can serve only as a sounding board, for the 
noise is made in the syrinx, and may be passably imitated in that of a freshly- 
killed specimen by placing the thumb and forefinger over the apertures, and 
blowing at the proper intervals thru the entering windpipe. The sound may 
also be well reproduced by the human voice, and we have offended many a 
hooter ere now by challenging in his preserves. 
