OREGON DUSKY GROUSE. 155 



Vancouver, at Nisqually, and along the banks of the Fraser 

 River, about the end of March, the male bird announcing 

 his coming by a kind of love-song. This is a booming 

 noise, repeated at short intervals, and so deceptive, that 

 Mr. Lord has often stood under the tree where the bird 

 was perched and imagined the sound came from a distance. 



Mr. Nuttall found this Grouse breeding in the shady 

 forests of the region of the Columbia, where he saw or 

 heard them throughout the summer. He describes the 

 tooting made by the male as resembling the sound caused 

 by blowing into the bung-hole of a barrel. They breed on 

 the ground, and are said to keep the brood together all 

 winter. 



Townsend describes the eggs as numerous, of a cinere- 

 ous-brown color, blunt at both ends, and small for the bird. 

 The actions of the female, when the young are following 

 her, are said to be exactly similar to those of the Ruffed 

 Grouse, employing all the artifices of that bird in feigning 

 lameness, etc., to draw off intruders. Baird, Brewer and 

 Ridgway. 



