Fig. 1 The Dusky Grouse (D. o. obscurus). Male (the lower one) and female. Reproduction made by the 



author of Audubon's plate. 



The American Grouse and Their Identi- 

 fication 



By DR. R. W. SHUFELDT, F. A. O. U., ETC. 



INTRODUCTION: DUSKY GROUSE 



PART I. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS. BY THE AUTHOR 



JAVING completed and 

 published, in ten parts 

 in Outer's Book, the con- 

 tribution wherein I at- 

 tempted by the use of 

 figures and descriptions 

 to present data, by means 

 of which the ducks of 

 this country could be 

 easily distinguished, I now pass to a con- 

 sideration of the American Grouse, a 

 group of most interesting birds which will 

 be treated here in a similar way. 



In an article of mine, published in The 

 American Naturalist (Vol. XXXVIII, Nos. 

 455-456, Nov., Dec., 1904 r pp. 833-857), I 

 give "An Arrangement of the Families and 

 the Higher Groups of Birds," and in that 

 arrangement the Gallinaceous Birds or fowls 

 are arrayed in a Suborder (XXIV) Gallina, 

 wherein are included seven families, all 

 more or less related to each other. These 

 are the mound-birds (Megapodia), the curas- 



sows, guans, etc., (Cracida), of which we 

 have but one species in this country, namely, 

 the Texan guan, and the several families 

 containing the pheasants, the grouse, the 

 quails, the guinea fowls, and the American 

 turkeys; in other words, respectively, the 

 Phasianidce, the Tetraonidce, the Odontophor- 

 id(B, the Numidida and the Meleagrida. 



From this it will be seen that fowls, as 

 game, occur in nearly every part of the 

 world with a truly marvellous array of 

 genera and species. Of this immense host, 

 however, I will consider here but the Ameri- 

 can forms of one family, that is, the Tetra- 

 onid(B, which includes the true grouse, the 

 spruce partridges, ptarmigans, prairie chick- 

 ens, sharp-tailed grouse and the sage hen. 

 In other words, I shall have nothing to do 

 with any of the four or five species of big, 

 true pheasants, which we have introduced 

 into several parts of the country, where 

 they are now wild and rapidly increasing; 

 nor with our various species of bob-whites 



B 5216 



