THE Zool.ocist—SEPTEMBER, 1876. 5071 
bills. And a well-known instance is on record of a wild duck 
nesting on the top of a church-tower. 
If one characteristic of the American Ornis is the number and 
variety of the Totanid, another is the extreme beauty of the 
game-birds which, known by the names of pheasants, partridges 
or chicken, are all of them true grouse. Of these, Cupidonia 
Cupido, the pinnated grouse, the well-known “ prairie hen,” may 
be pronounced the most beautiful. In the wilds spring is ushered 
in by the strange booming call of the sharptailed grouse. The 
effect of these peculiar notes, when heard for the first time, is, the 
Doctor says, indescribable. ‘No one could say whence the sound 
proceeded, nor how many birds, if more than one, produced it; the 
hollow reverberations filled the air, more like the lessening echoes 
of some great instrument far away, than the voice of a bird at hand.” 
The ruffed grouse (Bonasa umbellus), in those districts where 
it is to be met with, in the spring months produces a peculiar 
drumming, concerning which there has been some dispute among 
ornithologists. Dr. Coues agrees in the main with the reason 
assigned by Nuttall for this performance, and quotes his account 
of it :— 
“In the month of April the ruffed grouse begins to be recognised by his 
peculiar drumming, heard soon after dawn and toward the close of evening. 
At length, as the season of pairing approaches, it is heard louder and more 
frequent till a later hour of the day, and commences again toward the close 
of the afternoon. This sonorous crepitating sound, strongly resembling a 
low peel of distant thunder, is produced by the male, who, as a preliminary 
to the operation, stands upright on a prostrate log, parading with erected 
tail and ruff, and with drooping wings, in the manner of the turkey. After 
swelling out his feathers and strutting forth for a few moments, at a sudden 
impulse, like the motions of a crowing cock, he draws down his elevated 
plumes, and, stretching himself forward, loudly beats his sides with his 
wings with such accelerating motion, after the first few strokes, as to cause 
the tremor described, which may be heard reverberating, in a still morning, 
to the distance of from a quarter to half a mile. This curious signal is 
repeated at intervals of six or eight minutes. The same sound is also heard 
in autumn as well as in the spring, and is given by the caged birds as well 
as the free, being, at times, merely an instinctive expression of hilarity and 
vigour. The drumming parade of the male is often likewise the signal for 
a quarrel; and when they happen to meet each other in the vicinity of their 
usual and stated walks, obstinate battles, like those of our domestic fowls 
for the sovereignty of the dunghill, but too commonly succeed.” 
