254 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



Like many others of our best game birds, the sharp- 

 tailed grouse has been so unremittingly pursued that 

 it is rapidly becoming more and more scarce, and 

 promises before long, in all regions where it is pursued 

 with dog and gun, to become as rare as its relative, 

 the pinnated grouse. 



In habits the birds are all closely alike, except that 

 we may assume that the northern form has modified 

 its habits in accordance with its environment. Mr. 

 Roderick MacFarlane found this species breeding in 

 1884 near Fort Providence. The two last-named forms 

 of the sharp-tailed grouse which is also called white 

 belly, speckle belly, willow grouse and pin tail are 

 common all through the northwestern United States. 

 They are birds of the open land, yet at certain seasons 

 of the year resort commonly to willows or brushy 

 ravines, from which sometimes they get up in a thick 

 flock, like a brood of gigantic quail. 



E. E. Thompson, writing of the prairie sharp- 

 tailed grouse in Manitoba, describes its prenuptial 

 dancing in the following language: "After the dis- 

 appearance of the snow, and the coming of warmer 

 weather, the chickens meet every morning at gray dawn 

 in companies of from six to twenty on some selected 

 hillock or knoll, and indulge in what is called 'the 

 dance/ This performance I have often watched. It 

 presents the most amusing spectacle I have yet wit- 

 nessed in bird life. At first, the birds may be seen 

 standing about in ordinary attitudes, when suddenly 

 one of them lowers its head, spreads out its wings 



