

SHARP-TAILED GROUSE 253 



sharp-tailed grouse (P. p. columbianus) is very 

 much paler in color, being grayish or clay color and 

 marked with black, but with the black marks less sharp 

 and strong. It is found in central British Columbia 

 and central Alberta, south in the western United States 

 as far as northern California, Nevada and Utah, east 

 to the border of the plains in Colorado. Its range is 

 chiefly west of the Rocky Mountains. It is slightly 

 smaller than the northern form. 



The more familiar sharp-tail of the Middle West 

 (P. p. campestris) is abundant on the plains from 

 southern Manitoba and southern Alberta, south through 

 the United States to Wyoming and Kansas, east as far 

 as Wisconsin and Illinois, and west to eastern Colo- 

 rado. It is bright rusty in color and its dark mark- 

 ings are much less conspicuous than in the northern 

 form. 



The sharp-tailed grouse, which of late years has 

 come to be known over much of the West as prairie 

 chicken, is thus in one or other of its three forms 

 a bird of wide distribution. It is found from Kansas, 

 on the south, to central Alaska on the north, and from 

 British Columbia, California and Nevada, on the west, 

 to James' Bay on the east. It occurs, as said, sparsely 

 south of the Great Lakes, but in the United States 

 except in this locality its range is chiefly west 

 of the Mississippi River. While during the greater 

 'part of the year it seems to be a bird of the prairie, it is 

 yet often found high up in little mountain valleys, and 

 often in a country that is completely wooded. 



