222 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 
strange locality is chosen for a nest. Once I found one contain- 
ing twelve eggs at the foot of a beech tree, against the trunk and 
protected by it; forty feet up was a red-shouldered hawk’s nest, 
which in due time hatched out, as did the grouse at the foot. (Rev. 
Geynvoune.) 
3002. Gray Ruffed Grouse. 
Bonasa umbellus umbelloides (DouGL.) BAIRD. 1858. 
According to the A. O. U. List this form ranges from the United 
States northward into British America, north to Alaska and east to 
Manitoba. Mr. Seton, in his Birds of Manitoba, makes this form 
the resident of the aspen woods of Manitoba, and the writer believes 
this to be the species found in all parts of the wooded portions of 
the western prairie and the foothills of the Rocky mountains, includ- 
ing the aspen forests on the Peace river and northward down the 
Mackenzie. Mr. W. Spreadborough reports this form to have been 
common from Edmonton to Jasper House in the Yellow Head pass 
in 1898, and from Lesser Slave lake to the Peace river, Atha., in 
1903. In Alaska, however, Nelson states that this form is the only 
one, and that it has its home in the spruce forests and goes north as 
far as these forests extend. He also asserts that all specimens from 
north of Great Slave lake, excepting the coast form, found along 
the Pacific, are referable to the gray northern form. By a careful 
sifting of the statements of the various observers it will be seen that 
the range of the gray ruffed grouse and the Canadian ruffed grouse 
are not well defined, and that these forms are so closely related that 
Mr. Seton’s line of demarcation seems to be the true test of the 
form, or rather colour, and that the resident of the aspen woods is 
B. umbelloides, while that of the spruce forests is B. togata. This 
leaves B. umbellus togata on the Atlantic coast and B. umbellus 
sabint on the Pacific coast. 
The common form in Manitoba. It was collected in 1906 in bluffs 
and woods from Portage la Prairie, Man., to Edmonton, Alta. 
(Atkinson.) Moderately common at Aweme, Man., in aspen and 
willow thickets. Both the gray and the rusty forms are found at 
Aweme in aspen woods though the latter is much the rarer one. 
(Criddle.) Common at Midway, B. C., seen at Meyers creek,Sidley 
and Penticton, B.C. (Spreadborough.) Most of the ruffed grouse 
