THE PINNATED GROUSE. 63 



but she seldom flies at him, preferring to lead him away 

 from them by various artifices. She warns the brood of 

 danger by a single loud cluck, and the moment they hear 

 it they disperse in every direction, and squat so close to 

 the ground, in the tall grass or grain, that it is almost 

 impossible to detect them without the aid of a dog. 

 They remain in cover until the mother announces that 

 the danger is over and calls them to her side. 



They are so fully developed by the fifteenth of Au- 

 gust, although only hatched in June, that they afford 

 excellent sport, as they are strong on the wing, and their 

 flight, though regular, is rather swift. Being fast run- 

 ners, they generally try to escape on foot before attempt- 

 ing to use their pinions. The young males are so 

 exceedingly combative, that members of the same brood 

 indulge in contests in the autumn, but these are generally 

 suppressed by the mother before they lead to bloodshed. 



Audubon says that the males which he had domesti- 

 cated were conspicuous for their courage, and would even 

 fight the turkeys and dunghill cocks rather than yield 

 their ground. They were more pugnacious in spring 

 than at any other time, and strutted, tooted, and fought 

 each other as they do in tlie wild state. He found the 

 birds of both sexes readily amenable to domestication, 

 for he had sixty in his garden at one time, and they be- 

 came so tame during the winter that they would feed 

 from his hand. These bred in confinement, but the 

 broods were so destructive to vegetation that he was 

 compelled to kill them. 



Pmnated grouse are so abundant in jiortions of the 

 West that it is nothing unusual for a person armed with 

 a breech-loading gun to bag from twenty to thirty brace in 

 a day, but as they increase in numbers wherever civilized 

 man settles, there is no danger that they will become 

 scarce for many years to come, as they find an abundance 

 of food in the numerous insects that live on the prairie. 



