210 The Grouse Family 



ing its outthrust head, when, thanks to shooting 

 with both eyes open, I noticed something. The 

 flight of the bird would carry it directly between 

 the gun and the gleaming mountain peak. To 

 kill it against that marvellous background was the 

 whimsical notion born of the instant. On it 

 buzzed till the head cut into the white, a yard 

 farther, and the storm of lead overtook it, and for 

 a fraction of time it hung with all that mighty 

 peak to do it honor — and so the last chicken 

 died. 



And it was the last one, for all-undreamed-of 

 things were brewing which would prevent the 

 contemplated return to those Happy Hunting 

 Grounds. There were blue quail and pheasants 

 and ruffed grouse later; there have been quail 

 and snipe and everything of the East since, and 

 many of them ; yet older eyes are given to sweep- 

 ing the backward trail, till there glows a won- 

 drous vision of a snowy, sun-gilded peak and a 

 dark form hung with spread wings in mid-air, 

 as though let down from heaven by a viewless 

 thread. 



THE SAGE-GROUSE 

 ( Centrocercus urophasian us) 



Adult male — Upper parts, bufFy gray, barred with black, dark brown 

 and gray, sometimes irregularly blotched with black ; wings, like 

 back ; tertials, bordered and streaked with white ; primaries, 

 grayish brown ; tail, pointed, composed of twenty feathers, the 



