90 Grouse. 



the brood is well grown, the mother leads them out, and 

 during the next two months they are more often found 

 out on the grassy prairies than is the case at any other 

 season. They do not form into packs like the prairie 

 fowl as winter comes on, two broods at the outside 

 occasionally coming together ; and they then again retire 

 to the more waste parts of the plains, living purely on 

 sage leaves, and keeping closely to the best-sheltered hol- 

 lows until the spring-time. 



In the early part of the season the young, and indeed 

 their parents also, are tame and unsuspicious to the very 

 verge of stupidity, and at this time are often known by 

 the name of "fool-hens" among the frontiers-men. They 

 grow shyer as the season advances, and after the first of 

 October are difficult to approach, but even then are rarely 

 as wild as the sharp-tails. 



It is commonly believed that the flesh of the sage 

 fowl is uneatable, but this is very far from being the truth, 

 and, on the contrary, it is excellent eating in August and 

 September, when grasshoppers constitute their chief food, 

 and, if the birds are drawn as soon as shot, is generally 

 perfectly palatable at other seasons of the year. The 

 first time I happened to find this out was on the course 

 of a trip taken with one of my foremen as a companion 

 through the arid plains to the westward of the Little Mis- 

 souri. We had been gone for two or three days and 

 camped by a mud hole, which was almost dry, what 

 water it still held being almost as thick as treacle. Our 

 luxuries being limited, I bethought me of a sage cock 

 which I had shot during the day and had hung to the 



