130 AMEEICAJSr GAME BIED SHOOTING. 



irides are brown or hazel, and the tail, wliich has an 

 extreme length of seven and a half inches, has a band of 

 deep-blue or lead color, about three-fifths of an inch in 

 width. The male is sooty black above, the mottlings 

 being scarcely visible, and the scaj)ularies are devoid of 

 white markings. The black of the female is broken 

 above by transverse rufous mottlings; the abdomen is 

 dusky or leaden in hue; and the plumbaceous color of 

 the throat and flanks is marked by triangular and arrow- 

 shaped dots of rusty white. 



The variety known as Eichardson's grouse is devoid of 

 the broad terminal band of gray on the tail which the 

 typical species displays; the tail is also more square 

 at the tijD, uniformly black, and the feathers composing 

 it are broader and nearly truncate. It is not unlike the 

 European black cock, yet they may be readily distin- 

 guished apart. This variety and the true dusky grouse 

 merge into each other so closely in the central Eocky 

 Mountains that few persons can distinguish them aj)art 

 until they have been carefully compared, and even then 

 it is sometimes rather difficult to decide which is which. 

 Men who are more interested in sport than in technical 

 details pay little attention to these differences, however, 

 and are willing to let naturalists contend over them 

 while they devour the birds. Although it may be said 

 that the whole of the lower mountains, extending from 

 the Eocky Mountains to the Cascade and Sierra Nevada 

 Eanges, swarm with the dusky grouse during the sum- 

 mer and autumn, yet I have not seen them so abundant 

 in any part of the continent as on the Blue Mountains, 

 which run through Oregon and Washington Territory; 

 the Bitter Eoot Mountains, which divide Idaho and 

 Montana; and the series of elevated wooden ridges that 

 stretch northward towards the British line, in Idaho. 



The latter Territory is one of the finest game regions 

 on the Continent, as it boasts of nearly every animal 



