The American Grouse and Their Identi- 

 fication 



By DR. R. W. SHUFELDT 



THE SPRUCE PARTRIDGES: FRANKLIN'S GROUSE AND THE RUFFED GROUSE 



PART II. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR 



ANY years ago, I pub- 

 lished, in one of the U. S. 

 Government Reports, a 

 very full and illustrated 

 account of the skeletons 

 of all of our American 

 grouse and their allies, and 

 since, a great many illus- 

 trated papers and books 

 on the skeletons of hybrid grouse, turkeys, 

 pheasants, all the quails, and no end of foreign 

 species. I have also published the skeletons, or 

 bones, of not a few fossil species of these groups, 

 and I have often wondered whether the day 

 would ever come, when such information, as 

 I presented in those publications, would 

 become so generally disseminated that any 

 intelligent person, interested in our game 

 birds, could, by a mere glance at any dis- 

 tinctive bone of any one of them, say off-hand 

 what that bone was and to which species of 

 grouse, for example, it belonged. Some of 

 the bones of the skeleton of some grouse are 

 very characteristic of the species; and one, at 

 all familiar with them, could name the species 

 to which they belonged without a particle 

 of trouble. For instance, I can distinguish 

 between the pelves of a ruffed grouse and a 

 prairie chicken (Tympanuchus) with my eyes 

 closed, simply by handling them. Were 

 such information general, my task here, 

 giving rules and characters for identifying 

 our American grouse, would be very con- 

 siderably lightened. 



In Part One of the present contribution, 

 the species and subspecies of but a single 

 genus of American grouse were treated, with 

 respect to identification; that is, the dusky 

 grouse, Dendragapus, and its three sub- 

 species. 



In the A. 0. U. Check List of North 

 American Birds, the next two genera directly 

 following Dendragapus are Canachites and 

 Bonasa, the first containing the spruce 

 partridges and Franklin's grouse, and the 

 second the various forms of the ruffed 

 grouse. Both these genera, as genera, have 

 been characterized in Part One. 



The species Canachites canadensis or spruce 

 grouse, is a typical tree grouse occurring, in 

 suitable localities, in the forests of Canada 

 and Alaska, as far south as the boundary 

 of the United States. There are three sub- 

 species of the bird described by science, 

 namely the Hudsonian spruce partridge 

 (C. c. canadensis}, which has a range through- 

 out the boreal wooded region of the North, 

 extending from the eastern base of the 

 Rocky Mountains, westward to Edmonton, 

 Alberta, east to the Peninsula of Labrador. 

 It also occurs, in a special limited area, in 

 Alaska, which entitles it to a place in our 

 United States avifauna. This area extends 

 from Bristol Bay to Cook Inlet and Prince 

 William's Sound. A paler form of this bird, 

 known as the Alaska spruce grouse (Cana- 

 chites canadensis osgoodi) is found at Lake 

 Marsh, Yukon, Northwest Territory, and 

 has been fully described by Dr. Bishop in 

 The Auk (XVII. April, 1900, 114); and, 

 finally, we have the Canada spruce grouse 

 (C. c. canace). 



True canadensis is referred to by a number 

 of common names, some of which probably 

 include other forms of Canachites. Some of 

 these names are: the Canada grouse; black 

 grouse; wood grouse; spotted grouse; spruce 

 grouse or partridge; swamp or cedar par- 

 tridge. Its scientific vernacular name, how- 

 ever, is, as I say, the Hudsonian spruce 

 partridge. The adult male, in full plumage, 

 is slightly crested; but when the crest is 

 lowered, the head is smooth. Over the eye, 

 the comb is naked and colored a clear yellow, 

 changing to a pale red under certain emotions. 



In this species, the upper parts are barred 

 in a wavy fashion with gray and black, with 

 occasional rufous markings on the wings 

 and back, which, on the wing-coverts and 

 shoulders, are replaced by white. Beneath, 

 the plumage is a shiny black, much variegated 

 with white; the throat is bounded by white 

 spots, and some of these occur on the sides 

 of the head. Breast and sides white-barred, 

 passing to semi-circles behind. The lower 

 tail-coverts have the feathers also white- 



