660 North American Grouse. 



The hunter pursuing game over the ridges of the Rocky Mount- 

 ains and among the dead timber that the Indians kill by their 

 annual fires, finds this bird flitting out of the young shoots and 

 sitting on the low branches of the neighboring trees. Its little head 

 turns from side to side as it examines the stranger, — a movement 

 accompanied by the nod of the pigeon, rendering it very difficult to 

 shoot off its head with a pistol, though sometimes it allows several 

 shots to be taken before flying. 



Its proper colors, its most graceful shape, and its apparent tame- 

 ness rendered it exceedingly attractive. Its flesh is constantly in 

 camp, and every hunter, as he comes in at night, will have one or 

 two slung to his saddle, as its white flesh is greatly preferred to the 

 continued diet of elk's meat and venison. It has the peculiarity 

 noted in that of the black game of Scotland, of having two colors of 

 flesh on its breast, one being darker than the other. The habit it 

 has of flitting to the lower branches of the trees on the slightest 

 noise being heard is explained by the presence of the ever-prowling 

 coyote. 



This bird inhabits all the mountain-lands to the Pacific Ocean. 

 In the Cascade Mountains they are abundant, under the name of 

 the blue grouse, and frequent the heavy pine or redwood timber. 

 Another variety is spoken of as the Richardson grouse, varying 

 only in a tail-marking. In the fall of the year, the blue grouse 

 leaves the lower strata of vegetation, where it is liable to be buried 

 in the snows, and where it has to dispute its occupancy with many 

 stronger neighbors, and betakes itself to the upper plane of the 

 pine-tree tops. There, two hundred feet or more from ground, 

 it finds ample shelter in the dense, perpetual verdure, and unlimited 

 supply of buds for food, and safety even from the eyes of man. No 

 retreat could be so absolutely secure, — nothing but the lightning 

 and the tempest can reach it; and its morning crow heralds the 

 day while yet the trunk of the tree and the humbler birds that 

 live near it are wrapped in darkness. When winter is passed, and 

 little sprouts come forth out of the ground, the grouse descends 

 to its old resorts and builds its nest, and shuffles in the sandy 

 bank as it did the summer before. This is a true bird of the 

 mountain, and has the resinous odor of the woods in its flesh. It 

 reminds one of its noble congener of Scotland, — the black cock, — 



