162 FRANK SCHLEY'S PARTRIDGE AND PHEASANT SHOOTING. 



doubt the most southern point at which it has been disco- 

 vered. 



Dr. Coues has never met with it in Arizona. 



Mr. Ridgway encountered it everywhere in the Great 

 Basin where there was a thrifty growth of the artemisia, 

 which appears everywhere to regulate its existence. He 

 corroborates the account given of its heavy, lumbering 

 flight; and when it has once escaped, it flies so far that 

 the sportsman rarely has a second opportunity to flush it. 

 It rises apparently with great effort. He was told by the 

 settlers of Nevada and Utah that the Sage-Hen Avas never 

 known to touch grain of any kind, even when found in 

 the vicinity of grain fields. This is attributed to a very 

 curious anatomical peculiarity of the species, the entire 

 absence of a gizzard ; having instead a soft membraneous 

 stomach, rendering it impossible to digest any hard food. 

 In a large number of specimens dissected, nothing was 

 found but grass-hoppers and leaves of the artemisia. 



Two eggs in my cabinet, from Utah, measure, one 2.^0 

 by 1.50 inches, and the other 2.15 by 1.45. They are of 

 an elongate-oval shape, slightly pointed at one end. 

 Their ground color varies from a light-greenish drab to a 

 drab shaded with buff. They are thickly freckled with 

 small rounded spots of reddish brown* and dark chestnut. 

 Baird, Brewer and Ridgway. 



