UPLAND GAME BIRDS 127 
Nest: On ground in the woods, usually under fallen trees. 
Eggs: 6 to 12; buffy, sometimes slightly stained or speckled with brown. 
Size 1.56 X 1.16. 
THIS is a fairly common resident in the coast district 
of Northern California. Its habits of “drumming,” ete. 
are like those of the Eastern grouse. The cocks leave 
their mates as soon as sitting begins, and do not usually 
return until fall, when the broods get together for the 
winter. The young are to be found with the mother in 
the vicinity of the nesting place for ten days or two 
weeks, and then are taken to a thicket-bordered stream. 
Their food consists of grasshoppers, insects, young leaves 
of plants, berries, and a few varieties of seed, such as the 
wild sunflower. 
309. SAGE GROUSE. — Centrocercus urophasianus. 
Famity: The Grouse, Partridges, Quails, ete. 
Length ; Male 26.00-30.00; female 21.00-23.00. 
Adult Male: Upper parts mottled and barred gray, buff, and black ; 
cheeks, chin, and throat spotted black and white ; a white crescent 
on each side of throat reaching to eye; fore-neck black, merging to 
dull gray on the chest; the feathers with very stiff black shafts ; 
belly uniform black ; chest white after breeding season. In breeding 
season, tufts of wiry black feathers mixed with white down on the 
shoulders ; air sacs on sides of throat yellow. 
Adult Female: Chin and throat white ; fore-neck speckled gray in ruffs ; 
air sacs or shoulder plumes. 
Young: Similar to female, but browner; markings of lower parts 
indistinct. 
Downy Young: Upper parts brownish gray mottled with blackish. 
Geographical Distribution: Sagebrush plains of the Rocky Mountain 
plateau, southwest to California, north to British Columbia. 
Breeding Range: In California the arid Great Basin region, east of the 
Sierra Nevada. 
Breeding Season: April and May. 
