TEMPERATE AMERICA. BIRDS. 65 



ec barren grounds" of Kentucky, and in a few other 

 districts : one of these is the Tetrao umbellus, or ruffled 

 grouse; called, in America, the 

 pheasant. It has an extensive 

 northerly range, and was met with 

 by Dr. Richardson. The other 

 is the Tetrao Cupido, or pinnated 

 grouse (fig. 22.) ; so called from 

 \ two tufts of pointed feathers on 



fjl. the side of the neck;> resemblin g 

 the wings of a little Cupid, and 

 which cover a naked skin, in- 

 flated like a ball during the season of courtship. There 

 is a small-sized partridge, called by the natives, with 

 equal impropriety, a quail. To compensate, however, 

 for this deficiency of feathered game, the Americans 

 can boast of the native wild turkey, a bird so truly 

 valuable, that, as Dr. Franklin well observes, it would 

 have been a much fitter emblem of their country than 

 the white-headed eagle ; "a lazy, cowardly, tyrannical 

 bird, living on the honest labours of others, and more 

 suited to represent an imperial despotic government than 

 the republic of America." However this may be, the 

 turkey is entitled to the nobility of the farm-yard. 

 Cultivation and population have had their usual effect 

 on large animals, and have driven the wild turkeys 

 from many of their former haunts ; yet they are still 

 to be found, in large flocks, in the back settlements of 

 Louisiana, and in a few other states. 



(92.) The aquatic orders, among themselves, show 

 a very different disposition. Few of the wading birds 

 resemble those of Europe, and even the snipe and wood- 

 cock are distinct from ours. The golden plover is the 

 same ; but all the rest, with the curlews, most of the 

 sandpipers, together with the coot and the water-hen, 

 are not only peculiar to America, but very few have 

 been found to the south of the line. The American 

 flamingo (fig. 23.), fully as tall as the European, is of 

 a much more beautiful and intense scarlet ; while the 

 p 



