wt 



^R' 



102 



GAA/H BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



enemy and persecutor, man. Mis head is drawn back and 

 the bright blood-red combs stand erect and stiff above 

 each eye; the feathers of throat and breast are raised 

 and puflfed out, and the wings are lowered and slightly 

 open; while the outspread tail, occasionally closed with 

 a swift movement, is elevated above the body. In this 

 apparently uncomfortable but proud and striking atti- 

 tude, the bird moves slowly about with mincing, jerky 

 steps, highly impressed with his own importance and the 

 imposing display he is making. Certainly, at such a 

 time he is a beautiful object and well worth seeing. He 

 has a method of drumming also that is peculiar to him- 

 self, and is effected in the following manner: When in tlic 

 act of strutting he suddenly flies upward but not very 

 high, keeping the wings moving at a very rapid rate, and 

 after holding himself stationary for a moment in the air, 

 descends again slowly to the ground. The drumming 

 sound is produced by the rapid movement of the wings. 

 I have seen certain Pheasants, of the genus Euplocamus, 

 drum in a somewhat similar manner, although they did 

 not rise from tlie ground entirely. The wings would be 

 beaten violently and rapidly for a few moments, and the 

 bird would be raised on to the tips of its toes, sometimes 

 the nails just touching the ground, but I never saw it 

 entirely quit the earth ; and the noise made by the wings 

 was a low, deep rumbling with a strange ventriloquial 

 power, and although I was looking directly at the bird 

 during the performance, the sound appeared to come 

 from some place a long distance away rather than 

 directly in front of me. 



The nest is a loosely arranged afifair of grass, leaves, 

 and other slight material, placed under some drooping 

 branches of a spruce in the depths of a swamp. A 

 writer in the Forest and Stream, Mr. Bishop of Kent- 



