212 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
They lay from four to seven white eggs with colored spots. 
(Hutchins vide Seton-Thompson.) 
308¢. Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse. 
Pediocetes phasinellus columbianus (ORD) Cours. 1872. 
Very abundant at Indian Head, Assa., 1892, found feeding in 
stubble fields and around old straw-stacks. The males collect in 
large numbers on some hill about the end of April or beginning 
of May to have their annual dance which they keep up for a 
month or six weeks. It is almost impossible to drive them away 
from one of their hills when they are dancing. One day about 
the middle of May, I shot into a dancing party killing two and 
wounding another which flew a short distance, I went to get it and 
before I got back to pick up the dead birds the others were back 
dancing around them, | fired into them again, killing two and in 
less than five minutes they were back dancing again as though 
nothing had happened. (Sfreadborough.) An abundant resident 
east of the Coast Range ; I found this bird very abundant along 
the Cariboo Road, from Pavilion Mountain to the 108-Mile post. 
(Fannin.) Common in some places in the interior, but said by 
settlers to be constantly diminishing in numbers. (S¢veator.) This 
form is very abundant from Manitoba westward, but is not a true 
prairie species as in the fall and winter it loves the poplar copse, 
willow thickets and margins of prairies or coulees where there is 
brush. We have taken it in the foothills, but not high up on the 
mountains. Mr. Spreadborough reports seeing the last of these 
birds 25 miles west of Edmonton, Alberta, in 1898. The same form 
is found at Kamloops and Spence’s Bridge, B.C., and is doubtless 
common in southern’ British Columbia. 
BreEpING Notes.—The nest of this species is placed in the 
long, rank grass under some tuft that will aid in its concealment, 
and is usually not far from a tract of brush-land or other cover. 
It is little more than a slight hollow in the ground, arched over 
by the grass. The eggs are usually fourteen, but sometimes 
fifteen or sixteenin number. Immediately before expulsion they 
are of a delicate bluish-green ; on being laid they show a pur- 
plish grape-like bloom ; after a few days exposure they become 
of a deep chocolate brown, with a few dark spots. After a fort- 
night has transpired they are usually of a dirty white ; this 
change is partly due to bleaching, and partly to the scratching 
Poe. 
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