SHARP-TAILED GROUSE, ETC. 189 



the Rocky Mountains, and, nearing the coast, Franklin's 

 grouse will become abundant. The Canadian line would 

 give him plenty of sport with ptarmigans. Franklin' s 

 grouse lives at a lower altitude than does the dusky 

 grouse, and prefers a sandy, pine-barren region. To this 

 species the term " fool-hen " may be properly applied, for 

 it will almost put its head in a noose, and, when disturbed, 

 it does not trust to its wings, but sneaks through the 

 underbrush or runs to cover as fast as its legs can carry 

 it. The males are occasionally gregarious, but a polyg- 

 amous family is the exception and not the rule. 



The specific difference between this bird and other 

 Western members of the genus Dendragapus is found in 

 the tail, which has but sixteen feathers, and in the absence 

 of the air-sac on the side of the neck. Both sexes are 

 barred above with black and grayish, but beneath, there 

 is a great difference. In the male, black predominates, 

 barred with white, while the ground-color in the female 

 is a rusty white or buff, barred with black. In the male, 

 the tail is black to the extreme tip ; in the female, the tail- 

 feathers are tipped with a narrow band of white. The 

 eggs are buff, spotted with dark-brown, and are consider- 

 ably smaller than those of the sooty grouse. 



Franklin's grouse is more easily domesticated than are 

 any other birds of the family. Often cow-boys and sheep- 

 men, who summer in the grass-covered upland valleys, 

 bring in a nest of young chicks to the camp. The little 

 strangers soon get over their natural timidity. They do 

 not attempt to hide, nor yet to escape, so there is no use 

 in clipping their wings, and they readily learn to recognize 

 and seek the hand that feeds them. 



I once attempted to form a "happy family." I built 

 a little stockade of willows just outside my cabin, and, as 

 a nucleus for an aviary, put therein a pair of burrowing 

 owls about two weeks old. My next acquisition was a 



