26 BENDIRE ox the Habits of the Sooty Grouse. [January 
and with a powerful field glass to assist me, I had to give it up, 
completely baffled. 
It is beyond me to describe this love call accurately. Some 
naturalists state that it resembles the sound made by blowing 
into the bunghole of an empty barrel, others find a resemblance to 
the cooing of a pigeon and some to the noise made by whirring 
a rattan cane rapidly through the air. The latter sound comes in 
my opinion nearer to it than anything else. The closest approach 
to it I can give in letters, isa deep, guttural mzahum, the first 
letter scarcely sounded. 
The accounts of the nesting habits of the Sooty Grouse are 
somewhat vague, the number of eggs to a set being variously given 
as from eight to fifteen. Ihave personally examined quite a num- 
ber of the nests of this Grouse between May 6, 1871, and June 
25,1883. The largest number of eggs found by me in a set was 
ten, in two instances, three sets contained nine each, seven sets 
contained eight each, and five sets seven eggs or less, the latter 
probably incomplete, although some of these sets of eggs were 
advanced in incubation. I think that eight eggs is the ordinary 
number laid by these birds. 
Eggs may be looked for from April 15 to the latter part 
of May, according to altitude. The earliest date on which I ob- 
tained eggs of this Grouse was April 18, 1877, when a set was 
found by Lieut. G. R. Bacon, 1st Cavalry, containing seven fresh 
specimens. This nest was placed in a willow bush growing 
under a solitary pine tree, in a small ravine, five miles northwest 
of Camp Harney, Oregon. This nest was composed entirely of 
dry pine needles, picked up in the immediate vicinity. 
A nest found by me April 22, 1877, about four miles west of 
Camp Harney, was placed under the roots of a fallen juniper tree, 
in a grove of the same species, growing on an elevated plateau 
close to the pine belt. This nest was well hidden, a mere de- 
pression in the ground, and composed of dry grasses, a few feath- 
ers from the bird’s breast, and dry pine needles. The nine eggs 
were about half way imbedded in this mass, and nearly fresh. 
As a rule, most of the nests found by me were placed in sim- 
ilar situations under old logs or the roots of fallen trees, and 
generally fairly well hidden from view, and amongst the more 
open pine timber along the outskirts of the forest proper. Oc- 
casionally, however, a nest may be found some little distance from 
