CANACE CANADENSIS : CANADA GROUSE. 



149 



5.50. Female : nowhere continuously black, but much varie- 

 gated with brown, tawny and white ; the same orange colored 

 tail-bar, not so well denned. In size, rather less than the male. 



The normal limit of dispersion of the Canada Grouse 

 southward divides the Canadian from the Alleghanian 

 Fauna, enabling us to draw the line between the two 

 with greater exactitude, perhaps, than that afforded by the 

 distribution of any other of our birds. The fine creature 

 resides in all the 

 evergreen wood- 

 ed, and especially 

 in the swampy, 

 parts of North- 

 ern New England, 

 and is not a migra- 

 tory species. It is 

 said to be common 

 at Umbagog, in 

 Maine, and to be 

 ordinarily limited 



southward by the White Mountain range. The few in- 

 stances in which this Grouse has been 'shown to occur 

 beyond the region indicated must be regarded as irregu- 

 lar, if not wholly accidental. Mr. Allen, very properly, 

 it seems to us, considers the two reported Massachusetts 

 captures as accidental. One of these was in the hem- 

 lock woods of Gloucester, in September, 1851 ; the other 

 in Roxbury, about 1865 (Am. Nat., iii, 1870, p. 636; 

 and Bull. Essex Inst., x, 1878, p. 22). Farther south, 

 the Spruce Grouse is unknown, even as a straggler. 



Like others of its family, this Grouse nests on the 

 ground, usually in swampy, secluded localities. The 

 eggs are laid in the latter part of May, and young may 



FIG. 32. HEAD OF CANADA GROUSE. 

 Natural size. 



