PINNATED GROUSE. 245 



country, yet if winter be excessively severe they will 

 frequent the edges of the timber, roosting on the tallest 

 trees, more particularly girdlings or those destitute 

 of small limbs. Under such circumstances they are 

 exceedingly wild, and the most successful deer or 

 turkey-hunter may practise all his cunning and most 

 cautious methods of approach with signal failure in 

 getting even within rifle range ; however, in a snow- 

 storm, by putting white clothes on. or a night-gown 

 over your attire and tying a towel around your head, 

 at feeding- time, when they are seated on the fences or 

 corn- stacks, you can easily get within ten or fifteen 

 yards of them. 



When flushed they invariably utter several separate 

 clucks, but after they have succeeded in placing a safe 

 distance between themselves and the intruder they 

 continue their course in silence ; nor if when on the 

 wing they should chance to fly over a sportsman do 

 they repeat their note of alarm. 



Their favourite food is buckwheat, corn, oats, wheat, 

 and grass- seed, the buds of fruit trees and the seed of 

 the sumach. 



Their size is eighteen inches long by twenty-seven 

 inches across the wings ; bill short, stout and curved, 

 with the upper mandible considerably overlapping the 

 lower ; legs feathered to the anfele; feet of ordinary size; 



