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The Outer's Book 



season, being inflated at will until it looks 

 like a small orange; tail short, of 18 stiff 

 feathers; breast meat dark; upper parts 

 light reddish brown barred with dusky and 

 buff; under parts white broadly barred with 

 brown; chin, throat, cheeks and stripe over 

 eye buffy. Length 16 inches; extent 27; 

 wing 8.3^-8.6; tail 4. Female smaller; wing 

 8; darker and rustier." (p. 376). 



Coues remarks that this bird very closely 

 resembles the common pinnated grouse of 

 the West and says, quoting some other 

 authority which he does not name, "neck- 

 tufts composed of from three to five narrow, 

 acutely lance-pointed, stiffened feathers, with 

 about the same number of overlapping 

 coverts." Ridgway states of this species 

 "Scapulars with large and very conspicuous 

 terminal spots of buffy whitish; neck-tufts of 

 adult male composed of not more than ten 

 lanceolate, pointed feathers." (Manual, p. 

 203). Coues confirms the scapulars being 

 spotted by the feathers having whitish tips. 



A pretty good figure is given of this heath 

 hen (T. cupido) in Darwin's "The Descent 

 of Man," and this is here reproduced as 

 Figure 15 from a photograph I made of it. 

 It is from an original drawing by T. W. Wood, 

 and represents the male in the act of strutting. 



In the Northwest, the common prairie 

 chicken not unfrequently crosses with the 

 sharp-tailed grouse either the prairie or the 

 Columbian and if such interesting hybrids 

 are met with by sportsmen, they should, if pos- 

 sible, be preserved. Years ago, I published 

 an account of the skeleton of one of these 

 hybrids, sent me by the distinguished ornithol- 

 ogist of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mr. 

 William Brewster. 



As in the case of T. cupido, the lesser 

 prairie chicken (T. pallidicinctus) is smaller 

 than americanus, and its markings above are 

 more of a brown than black, the dark ones 

 not being in excess of the light, the transverse 

 bars being brown with narrow edges. Be- 

 neath, the narrow dark bars are inclined to 

 enclose a broad brown one between any two 

 dusky ones. 



In this species, the tarsi are very light 

 feathered, to the extent of having an un- 

 feathered longitudinal strip posteriorly. 



This pale pinnated grouse is the one we 

 find in Kansas and Indian territory, down 

 into Texas; while further down, coast- wise, 

 in the latter state and Louisiana, we get 

 Attwater's, the heath hen is the Martha's 

 Vineyard one; the rest are the common 

 prairie chicken. 



With this, and the data I have given 

 above, one can identify any of the prairie 

 chickens of the genus Tympanuchus in this 

 country, including those found in Alaska. 



Passing to the sharp-tailed grouse of the 

 genus Pedioecetes and the sage hen (Centro- 

 cercus), it is as though I were meeting old 

 friends of by-gone days, for I was for many 

 years in the country where both were ex- 

 tremely abundant, and it would be hard 

 for me to say how many of them have fallen 

 for my gun. 



For Pedcecetes, we have the sharp-tailed 

 grouse, P. p. phasiandlus, an elegant game 

 bird ranging through "Central Alaska and 

 northwestern British Columbia east through 

 central Keewatin to central western Ungava, 

 and south to Lake Superior and the Parry 

 Sound district, Ontario, casual east to 

 Saguenay River, Quebec." (A. O. U. 

 "Check-List"). It is therefore not a repre- 

 sentative of our avifauna, while the two 

 subspecies of the genus are, the better 

 known to us being the Columbian sharp- 

 tailed grouse (P. phasianellus colu mbianus) . 

 This form has a range extending through 

 central British Columbia and central Alberta 

 southward to northeastern California, Utah 

 and central Colorado. 



The word phasianellus is the Latin diminu- 

 tive of phasianus, a pheasant, while colum- 

 bianus refers to the Columbia River. In 

 the case of our second subspecies, the prairie 

 sharp-tailed grouse (P. p. campeslris), its 

 subspecific name is also from the Latin, 

 campus meaning an extensive open area or 

 plain. This bird ranges through southern 

 Alberta and southern Manitoba, to Wyoming, 

 Kansas and northern Illinois. 



The Columbian sharp-tailed grouse has 

 received numerous common names, one or 

 more being applied to it in any section of 

 its range. Throughout the Northwest, it is 

 generally known as the prairie chicken; it 

 is also called the pin-spike or sprig-tailed 

 grouse, etc., or these terms without the word 

 grouse being used. I have been in sections 

 of the Northwest where they are simply 

 called "pin-tails." As elsewhere stated, 

 they will cross with the pinnated grouse, and 

 numerous hybrids have been taken. 



Audubon's account of the habits of the 

 sharp-tailed grouse was furnished him by Sir 

 John Richardson, Mr. Higgins and Townsend, 

 and it fully agrees with my own observations 

 of this bird. He states that the bird was 

 unknown to him, and, unfortunately, he 

 does not say who loaned him the skins of 

 this species from which he made his plate 

 (Vol. V., No. 60, PI. 298), and from which he 

 made his descriptions of plumage, etc. I 

 have photographed this plate and it is here 

 reproduced as Figure 16; the pair of birds 

 there shown have to me the appearance 

 of the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. 



