300 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



The pinnated grouse is that best known that which 

 affords the best sport and the best eating; the sharp- 

 tailed grouse, however, is shot with it to the westward of 

 Lake Michigan, though not, I believe, to the eastward of 

 that noble sheet of water, and is scarcely inferior to it. 



The great sage grouse is not shot at all as a sport, and 

 is only killed rarely by the voyageurs who cross the dreary 

 wastes, in which alone it has its abode, and the adventur- 

 ous hunting parties, who from time to time invade its wild 

 fastnesses. 



The pinnated grouse abhors wooded country ; is rarely, 

 if ever, found in tall timber ; carefully eschews low, wet 

 lands ; and haunts in preference, high, dry, rolling prairies, 

 where there is little water. Indeed, it is believed that this 

 bird never drinks, but takes all the liquid which it uses 

 by picking the dew or rain, drop by drop, from the herbage 

 or bushes on which it has fallen. This curious fact was 

 first discovered by a gentleman, who kept a hen bird for 

 some considerable time in a cage, and observed that she 

 would never take water from a cup, though if any were 

 spilled over the bars of her cage she would eagerly pick it 

 off. 



This is a beautiful and noble species, the full-gpown 

 male weighing nearly two pounds, and being proportiona- 

 bly vigorous, bold, and strong on the wing. It is decidedly 

 the finest gallinaceous game, if it may be so called, of 

 America, and affords the greatest sport to those who are 

 so fortunate as to reside where it abounds. 



In the barrens of Kentucky and the prairie regions of 

 Ohio, it begins first to be found in numbers, increasing as 



