144 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



fine protection and plenty of agreeable food for these birds, and 

 the regular temperature of the climate was at all times such as 

 was most congenial to their habits. 



NOMENCLATURE. 



The ruffed grouse derives its name from the peculiar construc- 

 tion of the plumage on the neck, "a large space being left desti- 

 tute of feathers, but covered over by an erectile ruff of elongated 

 feathers, of which the upper are silky, shining, and curved forward 

 at the end, which is very broad and rounded." 



Like most others of our game-birds, the ruffed grouse has several 

 local appellations: it is called partridge in the Eastern States, 

 pheasant in the Middle, and grouse in the Western. So general is 

 it with us all to call this bird pheasant in Pennsylvania, and by no 

 other name, that it really would appear like a piece of pedantry 

 to give it its proper appellation of grouse; in fact, most of our 

 shooters would not recognise the bird at all by this name. 



DESCRIPTION. 



The pheasant is eighteen inches long and twenty-three in ex- 

 tent ; bill a horn-color ; eye reddish-hazel, immediately above which 

 is a small spot of bare skin of a scarlet color ; crested head, and 

 neck variegated with black, red, brown, white, and pale brown; 

 sides of the neck furnished with a tuft of large black feathers, 

 twenty-nine or thirty in number, which it occasionally raises ; this 

 tuft covers a large space of the neck destitute of feathers ; body 

 above, a bright rust-color, marked with oval spots of yellowish- 

 white, and sprinkled with white spotted with olive; the tail is 

 rounding, extends five inches beyond the tips of the wings, is of a 

 reddish-brown, beautifully marked with numerous waving trans- 

 verse hairs of black, is also crossed by a broad band of black, 

 within half an inch of the tip, which is bluish-white, thickly 

 sprinkled and speckled with black; body below, white, marked 

 with large blotches of pale brown ; the legs are covered half-way 

 to the feet with hairy down of a brownish-white color ; legs and 



