""^^o!"'] PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 51 i 



October 25: Birtle. During the last few days, while traveling on 

 both banks of the Assiniboine, I have seen every shade of brown and 

 gray partridges together in the same regions. 



November 12 : Ground covered with snow ; hard frost ; in sp.uce bush 

 with J. Dufifou a deer hunt; saw three partridges roosting in an open 

 poplar, about dusk ; shot two of them. I can not understand these birds 

 so roosting, for, in addition to the inclemency of the weather, horned 

 owls are very numerous and very fond of partridge flesh. It is usual 

 for this species to roost in spruce coverts or else in a snow drift, hence 

 it may be concluded that these two birds simply made a mistake and 

 paid dearly for it. 



• On May 3, 1884, in spruce bush, I collected three male partridges; 

 one of the gray cast of plumage, with copper ruff; one brown, and one 

 intermediate. All had their crops filled with poplar catkins. 



On Thursday evening of May 29 I heard a partridge drumming in a 

 low thicket by the slough. I continued to approach it by cautiously 

 craw liug while the bird was drumming and lying still while he refrained. 

 When at length I was within 20 feet and yet undiscovered, I ensconsed 

 myself behiud.a thicket and settled myself to watch. The drummer 

 was standing on the log with his head and crest erect, his tail spread 

 but the feathers on his body compressed. After looking about uncon- 

 cernedly for a moment, he seemed to crouch a little to brace himself, 

 then the wings flashed with a thrump, followed by a stillness, and from 

 the appearance of the bird one might think the performance ended, but 

 after about six seconds there is another hazy flash of the wings, accom- 

 panied again by the thrump; in about two seconds it is repeated, and 

 again in half a second, and again and again, faster and faster, until at 

 last the strokes run into each other and roll away like "the rumbling 

 of distant thunder." I watched the performance a number of times. 

 Between each " tattoo " he did not strut but remained in the same place, 

 merely turning his head about. Also satisfied myself that the wings 

 beat nothing but the air. I had previously accepted this as the correct 

 theory, because whether it stand on a sound or rotten log, a stump or a 

 stone, the sound is always the same, and therefore it could not drum on 

 the perch, nor could it make the sound by beating its wings together, 

 for when a rooster or a pigeon strikes its wings together the sound is a 

 sharp crack, so that there is no plausible explanation other than the 

 one above given. 



On June 19, on the west side of Duck Mountain, in a thick poplar 

 woods, we came on a partridge that evidently had a nest or a brood 

 close at hand. She ran about our feet with her ruffs and tail spread and 

 her wings drooping, and whined in a manner that showed the reason 

 of her anxiety, but we failed to find the young or eggs. 



While exploring in the Carberry spruce bush, on July 3, with my 

 friend, Mr. Miller Christy, we passed a tree at whose roots was a part- 



