Fig. 15. Male of heath hen (Tym 



npanuchus cupido). Drawing by T. W. Wood. Photographically copied byTthe 

 author from Darwin's "The Descent of Man." 



The American Grouse and Their Identi- 

 fication 



By DR. R. W. SHUFELDT 



PRAIRIE CHICKENS (Concluded). SHARP-TAILED GROUSE; SAGE HEN 



PART IV. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 



continue my descrip- 

 tions of prairie chickens 

 of the genus Tympanuchus 

 which, for the lack of 

 space, I could not com- 

 plete in Part III of the 

 present series. 



The woodland heath 

 hen, or pinnated grouse 

 of Martha's Vineyard, is the Tympanuchus 

 cupido of science. It is smaller than any 

 of the other forms of this genus, and a 

 century or more ago it was an abundant 

 bird on certain parts of Long Island and on 

 a considerable portion of the states of the 



Atlantic, down i-nto Virginia. As before 

 stated, it is being strictly protected on 

 Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, where a 

 few pairs are still in existence, about 300 

 birds altogether. 



Eaton, in his Birds of New York, gives us 

 a good cut of the heath hen, it being a repro- 

 duction of a photograph of the mounted 

 specimen in the Museum of Vassar College. 

 His description of the bird is apparently 

 for both sexes, being as follows: "Tarsi 

 lightly feathered to the toes; a tuft of from 

 seven to ten elongated pointed feathers on each 

 side of the neck over the naked membrane, 

 which is very distensible in the mating 



