SHARP-TAILED GROUSE 259 



"Before the winter is over many of the birds, by con- 

 tinuously pulling off frozen browse, have so worn their 

 bills that when closed there is a large opening right 

 through, immediately behind the hook. Early in April 

 the few that have survived the rigors and perils of their 

 winter life spread over the prairie once more and soon 

 scatter to enter on their duties of reproduction." 



No one has written about this bird more charmingly 

 than Dr. Elliott Coues, whose article on the prairie 

 form is well worth quoting. He first heard the call of 

 the sharp-tailed grouse in North Dakota, when he was 

 alone in camp, not far from Fort Randall at the time 

 his home where he had gone to shoot water fowl. He 

 says: 



"Awakened before it was light by the sonorous cries 

 of the wild fowl making for the reedy lake where I had 

 encamped, I arose there was no need to dress pushed 

 off into the expanse of reeds in a light canoe I had 

 brought with me, and with my gun across my knees 

 sat quietly waiting for light to come. The sense of 

 loneliness was oppressive in the stillness that preceded 

 morning, broken only by the quack or plash of the wild 

 duck, and the distant honking of a train of wild geese 

 winnowing their sinuous way afar. I felt desolate 

 almost lost and thought how utterly insignificant man 

 is in comparison with his self-assertion. The grand 

 bluffs of the Missouri, rising past each other intermina- 

 bly, were before me in shadowy outline, that seemed to 

 change and threaten to roll upon me; all around 

 stretched the waste of reeds, secret, treacherous, limit^ 



