THE GROUSE. 



81 



there is heath to afford retreat and shelter. 

 Their food too somewhat differs ; while the 

 smaller kind lives upon heath blossoms, cran- 

 berries, and corn, the larger feeds upon the 

 cones of the pine-tree ; and will sometimes 

 entirely strip one tree before it offers to touch 

 those of another, though just beside him. tn 

 other respects, the manners of these birds are 

 the same ; being both equally simple in their 

 diet, and licentious in their amours. 



The cock of the wood, for it is from him we 

 will take our description, is, as was said, 

 chiefly fond of a mountainous and woody si- 

 tuation. In winter he resides in the darkest 

 and inmost parts of the woods ; in summer, 

 he ventures down from his retreats, to make 

 short depredations on the farmer's corn. The 

 delicacy of his flesh, in some measure, sets a 

 high price upon his head ; and as he is greatly 

 sought after, so he continues, when he comes 

 down from the hills, always on his guard. 

 Upon these occasions, he is seldom surprised; 

 and those who would take him, must venture 

 up lo find him in his native retreats. 



The cock of the wood, when in the forests, 

 attaches himself principally to the oak and 

 the pine-tree ; the cones of the latter serving 

 for his food, and the thick boughs for a habi- 

 tation. He even makes a choice of what 

 cones he shall feed upon; for he sometimes 

 will strip one tree bare before he will deign 

 to touch the cones of another. He feeds also 

 upon ants' eggs, which seem a high delicacy 

 to all birds of the poultry kind : cranberries 



logy, and an excellent, representation of the male is given 

 in the Northern Zoology. 



The total length of the male is thirty one and a half 

 inches, that of the female twenty-two. The colour of 

 the plumage is a beautiful mixture of yellowish-brown, 

 mottled and varied with deeper tints, the under parts 

 nearly white, with longitudinal streaks of brown, and 

 the centre of the belly dotted with large black patches. 

 On each side of the breast are two round naked protu- 

 berances, placed farther forward than those of T. cupido, 

 or pinnated grouse. Above each there is a tuft of fea- 

 thers, having their shafts considerably elongated, naked, 

 and tipped with black radii. On the sides of the neck 

 and across the breast, below the protuberances, the fea- 

 thers are short, rigid, and sharp-pointed, but lie over 

 each other with the same regularity as the scales of a 

 fish. The tail is eleven inches long, each feather lan- 

 ceolate, and is gradually attenuated to a fine point. The 

 female has the whole of the upper plumage umber-brown 

 and yellowisli-white, barred or mottled in equal propor- 

 tions. Under part nearly as in the male, but without 

 the projecting stifT feathers. 



The description of the manners of this species by Mr 

 Douglass, is the best account we yet have. "The flight 

 of these birds is slow, unsteady, and affords but little 

 amusement to the sportsman. From the disproportion- 

 ately small, convex, thin-quilled wing, so thin, that a 

 vacant space half as broad as a quill appears between 

 tach, the flight may be said to be a sort of fluttering, 

 more than any thing else: the bird giving two or three 

 claps of the wings in quick succession, at the same time 

 hurriedly rising; then shooting or floating, swinging 

 iro.n side to side, gradually falling, and thus producing 



VOL. II. 



are likewise often found in his crop ; and his 

 gizzard, like that of domestic fowls, contains 

 a quantity of gravel, for the purpose of as- 

 sisting his powers of digestion. 



At the earliest return of spring, this bird 

 begins to feel the genial influence of the sea- 

 son. During the month of March, the ap- 

 proaches of courtship are continued, and do 

 not desist till the trees have all their leaves 

 and the forest is in full bloom. During this 

 whole season, the cock of the-wood is seen at 

 sunrise and setting, extremely active, upon 

 one of the largest branches of the pine-tree. 

 With his tail raised and expanded like a fan, 

 and the wings drooping, he is seen walking 

 backward and forward, his neck stretched out, 

 his head swollen and red, and making a thou- 

 sand ridiculous postures : his cry upon that 

 occasion is a kind of loud explosion, which is 

 instantly followed by a noise like the whetting 

 of a scythe, which ceases and commences al- 

 ternately for about an hour, and is then ter- 

 minated by the same explosion. 



During the time this singular cry continues, 

 the bird seems entirely deaf and insensible of 

 every danger ; whatever noise may be made 

 near him, or even though fired at, he still 

 continues his call ; and this is the time that 

 sportsmen generally take to shoot him. Upon 

 all other occasions, he is the most timorous 

 and watchful bird in nature ; but now he 

 seems entirely absorbed by his instincts ; and 

 seldom leaves the place where he first begins 

 to feel the accesses of desire. This extraor- 



a clapping, whirring sound. When started the voice is 

 cuck, cuck, cuck, like the common pheasant. They 

 pair in March and April. Small eminences on the banks 

 of streams are the places usually selected for celebrating 

 the weddings, the time generally about sunrise. The 

 wings of the male are lowered, buzzing on the ground, 

 the tail spread like a fan, somewhat erect, the bare yel- 

 low oesophagus inflated to a prodigious size, fully half as 

 large as ,1ns 'body, and, from its soft membranous sub- 

 stance, being well contrasted with the scale-like feathers 

 below it on the breast, and the flexile silky feathers 

 on the neck, which on these occasions stand erect. In 

 this grotesque form he displays, in the presence of his 

 intended mate, a variety of attitudes. His love-song is 

 a confused grating, but not offensively disagreeable tone 

 something that we can imitate, but have a difficulty 

 of expressing ' Hur-hur-hur-r-r-r-hoo,' ending in a 

 deep hollow tone, not unlike the sound produced by 

 blowing into a large reed. Nest on the ground under 

 the shade of Purshia and Artemisia, or near streams, 

 among Phalaris arundinacea, carefully constructed of 

 dry grass and slender twigs. Eggs from thirteen to 

 seventeen, about the size of a common fowl, of a wood- 

 hrowri colour, with irregular chocolate blotches on the 

 thick end. Period of incubation from twenty-one to 

 twenty-two days. The young leave the nest a few hours 

 after they are hatched." " In summer and autumn 

 months these birds are seen in small troops, and in win- 

 ter and spring in flocks of several hundreds. Plentiful 

 throughout the barren, arid plains of the river Columbia: 

 also in the interior of North California. They do not 

 exist on the banks of the river Missouri; nor have the} 

 been seen in any place east of the Rocky Mountains." 



L 



