BIRDS. 135 



The cock of the wood is sometimes of the size of a turkey, and 

 uften weighs near fourteen pounds ; the black cock, of which the 

 male is all over black, though the female is of the colour of a par- 

 tridge, is about the size of a ben, and, like the former, is only found 



somewhat like a tiirkey. This is the moment that the sportsman seizes to 

 fire at him ; for, if the bird sees that he is discovered, he immediatly flies ofl 

 to the distance of several hundred yards before he ajjain settles. There is 

 something very remarkable in wliat is called the tkuniping of these birds. 

 Tliis tlioy do, as the sportsmen tell us, by clapping their wings against their 

 eidcs. They stand upon an old fallen tree, and in this station they begin 

 their strokes gradually, at about two seconds of time from one another, and 

 repeat them quicker and quicker, until they make a noise not unlike distant 

 thunder. This continues from the beginning about a minute ; the bird 

 ceases about six or eight minutes, and then begins again. The soimd is 

 often heard at a distance of nearly half a mile ; and sportsmen take advan- 

 tage of this note, to discover the birds, and shoot tliem. The grous com- 

 monly practise their thumping during the spring and fall of the year ; about 

 nine or ten o'clock iu the morning, and four or five iu the afternoon. 



The Pinnated Grous. — " It is somewhat extraordinary," says Wilson, in 

 his admirable American Ornithology, " that the European naturalists, in 

 their various accounts of our different species of grous, should have said 

 little or nothing of the one now before us, wliich, iu its voice, manners, 

 and peculiarity of plumage, is the most singular, and, in its flesh, the most 

 excellent, of all those of its tribe that inhabit the territory of the United 

 States. Buftbn has confounded it with the rulfed grous, the common par- 

 tridge of New England, or pheasant of Pennsylvania {telruo umbellus); 

 Edwards and Pennaut have, however, discovered that it is a difl'erent spe- 

 cies ; but have said little of its note, of its flesh, or peculiarities ; for, ahis I 

 there was neither voice, nor action, nor delicacy of flavour in the shrunk 

 and decayed skin from which the former took his figure, and the latter his 

 description ; and to this circumstance must be attributed the barrenness and 

 defects of both. This rare bird, though an inhabitant of different and very 

 distant districts of North America, is extremely particular in selecting his 

 place of residence j pitching only upon those tracts whose features and pro- 

 ductions correspond with his modes of life, and avoiding immense interme- 

 diate regions that he never visits. Open dry plains, thinly interspersed 

 with trees, or partially overgrown with shrub oak, are his favourite 

 haunts. 



" Their predilection for such situations will be best accounted for by con. 

 eidering the following facts and circumstances :— First, their mode of flight 

 is generally direct, and laborious, and ill calculated for the labyrinth of a 

 high and thick forest, crowded and intersected with trunks and arms of 

 trees, that require continual angular evolution of wing, or sudden turn- 

 ings, to which they are, by no means, accustomed. I have always observed 

 them to avoid the high timbered groves that occur here and there in the 

 barrens. Connected with this fact, is a circumstance related to me by a 

 very respectable inhabitant of that coimtry, viz. that one forenoon a cock 

 prous struck tlie stone chimney of his house with such force, as instantly 

 to fitU dead to the ground. 



JI 2 



