OF A RANCHMAN 



149 



a most acute colic, which was any thing but 

 a help to good shooting. 



Besides the sharp-tail there is but one 

 kind of grouse found in the northern cattle 

 plains. This is the sage cock, a bird the 

 size of a young turkey, and, next to the 

 Old World capercailzie or cock of the 

 woods, the largest of the grouse family. It 

 is a handsome bird with a long pointed 

 tail and black belly, and is a very char- 

 acterisic form of the regions which it in- 

 habits. 



It is peculiarly a desert grouse, for though 

 sometimes found in the grassy prairies and 

 on the open river bottoms, it seems really to 

 prefer the dry arid wastes where the with- 

 ered-looking sage-brush and the spiney 

 cactus are almost the only plants to be 

 found, and where the few pools of water 

 are so bitterly alkaline as to be nearly un- 

 drinkable. It is pre-eminently the grouse 

 of the plains, and, unlike all of its relatives, 

 is never found near trees; indeed no trees 

 grow in its haunts. 



