SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 179 



Southern Ontario has no prairie to meet the requirements of the 

 Prairie Chicken, and therefore the bird is rarely here. From various 

 sources I have heard of its being still found along the south-western 

 frontier, but the numbers are on the decrease. In the " List of 

 Birds of Western Ontario," it is stated that a few still breed at St. 

 Clair-. From W. E. Wagstaff, one of the oldest and most respected 

 settlers in the county of Essex, I have a most interesting letter 

 regarding the birds he has observed during his long residence there. 

 Of this species he says : " I have never seen Prairie Chickens alive, 

 but have heard of their being seen in bands about Sandwich. When 

 I first came to Amherstburg, about 1840, I heard the old sports tell 

 of having killed them in the gardens of the town." 



From the foregoing, it would appear that the days of the Prairie 

 Chicken in Ontario are numbered. It affords excellent sport to the 

 gunner, and the facilities for reaching it in its remote haunts are 

 now so much increased, that year by year, even in the United States, 

 it is being driven to regions still more remote. 



In the first week in May, 1886, some young men were practising 

 flight shooting at any water-fowl that happened to be passing between 

 the bay and the lake, near the canal at the Beach. Presently a bird 

 of different flight and shape came buzzing along, and was brought 

 down by one of the gunners, who was greatly astonished to find he 

 had killed a male Prairie Chicken in fine spring plumage. I passed 

 shortly afterwards and saw the bird just as it had been picked up. 

 It had been going at a very rapid rate, but whence it came, or 

 whither bound, was not apparent. 



GENUS PEDIOC^ETES BAIRD. 

 PEDIOOETES PHASIANELLUS (LINN.). 



133. Sharp-tailed Grouse. (308) 



Adult male: A decurved crest of narrow feathers, a bare space on each 

 side of the neck, capable of being inflated; tail, short, much graduated, of 

 sixteen feathers, all of which are more or less concave, excepting the two 

 middle ones along the inner edge, obliquely and abruptly terminated, the two 

 middle projecting an inch beyond the rest. Upper parts variegated with light 

 yellowish-red, brownish-black and white, the latter in terminal triangular or 

 guttiform Spots on the scapulars and wing coverts; quills, grayish -brown, 

 primaries with white spots on the outer webs ; secondaries, tipped and barred 



