472 



The Outer's Book 



over the eye." (Amer. Ornithol. Brewers' ed. 

 1852, p. 264). 



Ridgway, in his "Manual," (1887) gives 

 the "Common characters" of the genus 

 Tympanuchus on p. 202; and although he 

 does not there mention the cervical air-sacs 

 of those grouse as a character, we do find 

 the following: "Adult male: Sides of neck 

 with an erectile tuft of rather stiff elongated 

 feathers, the longest of which are 2.50 or 

 more in length; * * Adult female: Neck 

 tufts rudimentary, the longest feathers not 

 more (usually much less) than 2.00 in length." 



This covers americanus, cupido and palli- 

 dicinctus, that is, in all of these grouse, the 

 females possess "neck-tufts," which may be 

 at least two inches in length, Audubon and 

 Wilson to the contrary. 



With respect to the plumage, Ridgway, in 

 giving the common characters of Tympa- 

 nuchus, says, "Above brownish, barred 

 (sometimes spotted also) with dusky and 

 buff; beneath white broadly barred or banded 

 with brown; quills brownish gray, their 

 outer webs spotted with buff or whitish; 

 chin, throat and cheeks buff, the last marked 

 with a cluster of brown or dusky spots; a 

 dark brown stripe on side of head, from 

 corner of mouth beneath eye and across 

 upper part of ear-coverts; above this a buff 

 stripe, interrupted above the eye," and, in 

 characterizing americanus, "Darker bars of 

 back 'and rump single, very broad, solid 

 black; brown bars on sides and flanks .30 or 

 more wide, unicolored." 



The sexes are nearly alike, the male being 

 the larger, of the following measurements: 

 Length, 16 to 18 inches; extent, 28; wing, 8 

 to 9 inches; tail, about 4|. Modern writers 

 have been very full in describing the length, 

 number and form of the neck-tufts in Tympa- 

 nuchus; but not one of them states so far 

 as I can find what the color of them is. 

 Wilson, in his quaint way, says of these, 

 "the neck is furnished with supplemental 

 wings, each composed of eighteen feathers, 

 five of which are black, and about three 

 inches long; the rest shorter, also black, 

 streaked laterally with brown, and of unequal 

 lengths." (T. americanus: Kentucky). 



Ridgway says that in the heath hen (T. 

 cupido) the "neck-tufts of adult male com- 

 posed of not more than ten lanceolate, 

 pointed feathers," and in the lesser prairie 

 hen (T. pallidicinctus) , "Neck-tufts of adult 

 male with feathers broad and rounded at 

 tips, as in T. americanus." 



A good-sized prairie hen weighs about 3| 

 pounds -the smaller subspecies less. 



Bendire's description of Attwater's prairie 

 chicken (T. a. attwateri) found on the coast 

 region of Texas and southwestern Louisiana, 

 will be found in Forest and Stream (xi, No. 20, 

 May 18, 1893, 425). They occur in Refugio 

 Co., it being a form that comes very close 

 to americanus. 



I will conclude what I have to say about 

 the prairie chickens of this genus in the next 

 Part, that is Part IV., which will finish 

 this series. 



Wop Henderson Has the Floor 



By H. A. SCOTFORD 



LD Grimes was attending 

 to the wants of a snub 

 nosed urchin who wished 

 four cents worth of oat 

 meal and the rest of the 

 dime in vinegar, Snog 

 Porter was sorting flies 

 out of the dried currants 

 as he ate therefrom, Wop 

 Henderson was trying his knife on the 

 cheese and Sammy Green was transferring 

 the larger portion of the poor box to his 



pocket, when the door flew open and in 

 popped Tamarack Jones, his eyes fairly 

 bursting from their sockets as he tried to 

 surround his vanished wind and tell his news 

 at one and the same time. 



"Wolves! Wolves!" he strangled out, and 

 in the ensuing excitement Sammy took a 

 chew of sawdust from the egg crate, Snog 

 threw currants on the floor and ate six flies, 

 Wop shaved a sliver from the cheese box 

 and started to chew it and Grimes carefully 

 tied the vinegar into a paper sack. 



