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130 



GAME BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



females, assemble at some favorite place just as day is 

 breaking, to go through a performance as curious as it is 

 eccentric. The males with ruffled feathers, spread tails, 

 expanded air sacs on the neck, heads drawn toward 

 the back, and drooping wings (in fact the whole body 

 puffed out as nearly as possible into the shape of a ball 

 on two stunted supports), strut about in circles, not all 

 going the same way, but passing and crossing each other 

 in various angles. As the " dance " proceeds the excite- 

 ment of the birds increases, they stoop toward the 

 ground, twist and turn, make sudden rushes forward 

 stamping the ground with short quick beats of the feet, 

 leaping over each other in their frenzy, then lowerinj^ 

 their heads, exhaust the air in the sacs, producing a hol- 

 low sound that goes reverberating through the still air 

 of the breaking day. Suddenly they become quiet, and 

 walk about like creatures whose sanity is unquestioned, 

 when some male again becomes possessed, and starts off 

 on a rampage, and the " attack " from which he suffers 

 becomes infectious and all the other birds at once give 

 evidences of having taken the same disease, which then 

 proceeds with a regular development to the usual con- 

 clusion. As the sun gets well above the horizon, and 

 night's shadows have all been hurried away, the antics of 

 the birds cease, the booming no longer resounds over the 

 prairie, and the Grouse scatter in search of food, and in 

 pursuit of their daily avocations. While this perform- 

 ance is always to be seen in the spring, it is not unusually 

 indulged in for a brief turn in the autumn, and while it 

 may be considered as essentially a custom of the breed- 

 ing season, yet like the drumming of the Ruffed Grouse, 

 it may be regarded also as an exhibition of the birds' 

 vigor and vitality, indulged in at periods of the year even 

 when the breeding season has long passed. 



