168 NOTES ON THE 



side the head (interrupted above the eye), brownish yellow; 

 sides of head below, a dusky infraocular stripe, with the chin 

 and throat above, similar; feathers of the body above and below 

 brown, with a terminal and two transverse bands of well de- 

 fined white; the brown almost black and the white tinged with 

 rufous above; scapular feathers sometimes showing more 

 black; wings banded like the back; primaries grayish-brown, 

 marked only on the outer webs with light spots, shafts black; 

 tail feathers sometimes uniform brown, sometimes with rufous 

 transverse bars; under coverts marked like the back, with 

 more white sometimes; membrane above the eye and of the 

 sounding bladder, orange. 



Length, 16.50; wing, 8.80; tail, 4.70. 



Habitat, prairies of the Mississippi valley. 



PEDIOCJITES PHASIANELLUS CAMPESTRIS 



RiDGWAY. (308b.) 

 PRAIRIE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 



Thirty years ago the Sharp-tailed Grouse were distributed 

 over nearly the entire State, but were not popularly distin- 

 guished from the Pinnated Grouse. In common with the 

 latter, they were all called "chickens," and if an occasional 

 sportsman called attention to differences, the reply was ' ' they 

 are blackfoots." 



It seems difficult to satisfactorily account for the fact, yet 

 it nevertheless is such, that this species withdraws before the 

 advance of civilization and agriculture, as the other moves 

 along with it up to the occupation of a considerable proportion 

 of its agricultural area. Amongst the sportsmen of later years 

 have been some very observing amateur naturalists who have 

 noted this unmistakable retrocession of the species. With 

 characteristic pains. Dr. Coues approximatey traced the 

 southern lines of distribution of this species across Minnesota 

 in 1873, along the course of which an occasional "blackfoot"' 

 may still be found, but the representative numbers have de- 

 flected the aggregate line far to the north of west since that 

 time. In other words, the other species has overflowed and 

 buried it measurably out of sight for a considerable distance 

 north and east. This leaves the area over which both species 

 are in mutual possession much broader than formerly. 



About the first of April, the booming of the males is heard. 

 Coues says in Birds of the N. W. , "at the rallying cry the 

 birds assemble in numbers of both sexes, at some favorable 

 spot, and a singular scene ensues as the courtship progresses. 



