SHARP-TAILED GROUSE 



257 



rifle shoot off the heads of as many of these birds as 

 were needed for eating for the next two or three days. 



"I have only one note on these birds which seems 

 particularly worth mentioning, and of this I spoke in 

 my report to Colonel William Ludlow, on the birds 

 noticed during a reconnaissance to the Black Hills of 

 Dakota in 1874, which was published by the Engineer 

 Bureau of the War Department. The sharp-tailed 

 grouse has a cry which is unlike that of any other 

 grouse with which I am familiar, although something 

 very similar has been observed in the case, I think, of 

 one of the ptarmigans. On the plains of Dakota in 

 1874, having scattered a brood of sharp-tailed grouse, 

 consisting of a mother and a dozen well-grown young, 

 I sat down to wait for them to get together. The 

 mother had flown to the top of a hill not far off, where 

 she sat on the ground in plain sight, and after a few 

 moments began to call to the young, which immediately 

 answered her from the different points where they had 

 taken refuge. The call of the mother and the young 

 was a guttural, raucous croak, which quite closely re- 

 sembled the croaking of a raven at a little distance. 

 I plainly saw the old bird utter its note, and subse- 

 quently followed up the calls uttered by more than 

 one of the young ones, until I started them, and killed 

 one or two as they flew." 



In winter the food of the sharp-tailed grouse consists 

 largely of rose-berries and the buds of willows, cotton- 

 woods and aspens. In summer and autumn, grass- 

 hoppers, insects and various berries, together with 



