BIRDS OF MINNESOTA. 159 
Mille Lacs, where there is more or lessspruce. In a conversa- 
tion with Mr. E. O. Garrison, of this latter place, he said that 
from 1865 to 1868, the Spruce Partridge was quite common 
about the lake, frequenting the spruce groves. He often met 
with covies of six or more in his walks, and found them nest- 
ing on mossy hummocks among the spruce. Since then, how- 
ever, they seem to have been exterminated in that locality. 
They are such a stupid bird, so very tame that they form an 
easy mark for the arrow of the young Indian boy. They are 
often captured alive by a noose fastened to a short pole.” 
It is represented to be common north of Mille Lacs, and gen- 
erally throughout the evergreen sections of northern Minne- 
sota. Its habits exempt it from all suspicions of enmity to 
agriculture in its widest sense, In confinement it fattens 
quickly upon food that makes its flesh acceptable even to the 
daintiest epicures. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Tail sixteen feathers; feathers above banded distinctly with 
plumbeous; beneath uniform black, with a pectoral band of 
white and white on the belly; chin and throat above black; tail 
with a broad brownish-orange terminal band. Prevailing 
color in the male, black; each feather of the head, neck, and 
upper parts generally having its surface waved with plumb- 
eous-gray in the form of two or three well defined concentric 
bars parallel to each other, one along the exterior edge of the 
feather, and the others behind it; sides of the body, scapulars, 
and outer surface of wings mottled like back, but more irregu- 
larly, and with a browner shade of gray, the feathers with 
a central white streak expanding towards the tip (on the wing 
these streaks are seen only on some of the greater coverts); no 
white above except as described: under parts mostly uniform 
black, feathers of sides of belly and breast broadly tipped with 
white, which sometimes forms a pectoral band; a white bar 
across the feathers at base of upper mandible, usually inter- 
rupted above; a white spot on the lower eyelid, and a white 
line beginning on the cheeks and running into a series of white 
spots in the feathers of the throat; lower feathers of this are 
banded terminally with whitish; feathers at base of bill, head, 
below the eyes and beneath, pure black; quills dark brown, 
without spots or bands, the outer edges only mottled with 
grayish; tail feathers similar but darker, and tipped with a 
band of orange-chestnut nearly an inch wide, obscured on the 
central feathers; under tail coverts black, broadly barred and 
tipped with white; the feathers of the legs mottled brown and 
whitish; dirty white behind the tarsi; bill black. 
Length, 16.20; wing, 6.70; tail, 5.50. 
