A Sportsman ii 



The ptarmigan is, I think, the poorest eating of all 

 the grouse family, not excepting the spruce grouse, 

 and is as tame in its home localities as the latter. 

 I have often encountered them in the heights of the 

 Rocky Mountains. When with tender young chickens 

 they will exhibit the actions of the domestic hen 

 and bustle about in a similar manner, and I have 

 taken up the young chickens in my hands and held 

 them momentarily, while the mother would flutter 

 around, and when let go would scamper away with 

 the brood. I have seen them in the winter fly into 

 vincrusted snow banks, when following them up would 

 be a useless effort, as the ptarmigan will travel faster 

 in a loose snow bank than one can dig after it. 



I think our great American turkey may be put at 

 the head of the "gizzard" family, and may lead the 

 digesting procession, for it is capable of digesting 

 about anything which enters its crop, be it vegetable, 

 animal, or mineral. I have killed them when they 

 were unable to fly from the weight of their over- 

 loaded crops, which swept on the ground as they 

 walked, and have taken from single crops nearly a 

 quart of acorns and other nuts, which would surely 

 have been digested had the turkey lived. 



The gizzard of a turkey is a wonderful piece of 

 muscular mechanism of great power, through which 

 the contents of the crop pass with the auxiliary 

 grinders of stones, and the great muscular exertions 

 of the gizzard pulverize the hardest acorns, some of 

 them being as large as a man's thumb. Experiments 

 have been tried with turkeys by setting stout needles 

 in glass marbles, and being covered with dough these 

 have been swallowed and, after a few days, have been 



