288 AMERICAN GAME. 



rejoices like a veritable grand Signer in a multiplicity of 

 fair sultanas, whom so soon as they betake themselves to 

 the cares of maternity, he abandons, like a roue as he is, 

 and passes the remainder of the season, until the broods 

 disperse in the autumn, in company with small packs of 

 his own faithless sex, reveling and enjoying himself on 

 the mountain sides, in his loved pines and hemlocks, 

 while his forgotten loves brood patient over the hopes of 

 the coming season. 



" This drumming," says Wilson, in his eloquent and 

 animated page, " is most common in spring, and is the 

 call of the cock to a favorite female. It is produced in 

 the' following manner : the bird, standing on an old pros- 

 trate log, generally in a retired situation, lowers his 

 wings, erects his expanded tail, contracts his .throat, 

 elevates the two tufts of feathers on the neck, and 

 inflates his whole body something in the manner of a 

 Turkey cock strutting and wheeling about in great state- 

 liness. After a few manoeuvres of this kind, he begins 

 to strike his stiffened wings in short and quick strokes, 

 which become more and more rapid until they run into 

 each other, resembling the rumbling sound of very 

 distant thunder dying away gradually on the ear. After 

 a few minutes' pause, this is again repeated, and in a 

 calm day may be heard nearly a mile off. This is most 

 common in the morning and evening, though I have 

 heard them drumming at all hours of the day." 



It is singular, that so exact an authority as Wilson 



