Grouse. 75 



They were very familiar little birds, lighting on the backs 

 of the beasts, and keeping fluttering round their heads as 

 they walked through the grass, hopping up into the air all 

 the time. At first I could not make out what they were 

 doing ; but on watching them closely saw that they were 

 catching the grasshoppers and moths which flew into the 

 air to avoid the cattle's hoofs. They are as tame with 

 horsemen ; while riding through a patch of tall grass a 

 flock of buntings will often keep circling within a couple 

 of yards of the horse's head, seizing the insects as they fly 

 up before him. 



The valley through which the creek ran was quite 

 wide, bordered by low buttes. After a heavy rainfall the 

 water rushes through the at other times dry bed in a foam- 

 ing torrent, and it thus cuts it down into a canyon-like 

 shape, making it a deep, winding, narrow ditch, with steep 

 sides. Along the edges of this ditch were dense patches, 

 often quite large, of rose-bushes, bullberry bushes, ash, 

 and wild cherry, making almost impenetrable thickets, 

 generally not over breast high. In the bottom of the 

 valley, along the edges of the stream bed, the grass was 

 long and coarse, entirely different from the short fine 

 bunch grass a little farther back, the favorite food of the 

 cattle. 



Almost as soon as I had entered the creek, in walking 

 through a small patch of brush I put up an old cock, as 

 strong a flyer as the general run of October birds. Off 

 he went, with a whirr, clucking and crowing ; I held the 

 little i6-bore fully two feet ahead of him, pulled the trig- 

 ger, and down he came into the bushes. The sharp-tails 



