168 NOTES ON THE 
side the head (interrupted above the eye), brownish-yellow; 
sides of head below, a dusky infraocular stripe, with the chin 
and throat above, similar; feathers of the body above and below 
brown, with a terminal and two transverse bands of well de- 
fined white; the brown almost black and the white tinged with 
rufous above; scapular feathers sometimes showing more 
black; wings banded like the back; primaries grayish-brown, 
marked only on the outer webs with light spots, shafts black; 
tail feathers sometimes uniform brown, sometimes with rufous 
transverse bars; under coverts marked like the back, with 
more white sometimes; membrane above the eye and of the 
sounding bladder, orange. 
‘Length, 16.50; wing, 8.80; tail, 4.70. 
Habitat, prairies of the Mississippi valley. 
PEDIOCETES PHASIANELLUS CAMPESTRIS 
RIDGWAY. (808b.) 
PRAIRIE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 
Thirty years ago the Sharp-tailed Grouse were distributed 
over nearly the entire State, but were not popularly distin- 
guished from the Pinnated Grouse. In common with the 
latter, they were all called ‘‘chickens,” and if an occasional 
sportsman called attention to differences, the reply was ‘‘ they 
are blackfoots.” 
It seems difficult to satisfactorily account for the fact, yet 
it nevertheless is such, that this species withdraws before the 
advance of civilization and agriculture, as the other moves 
along with it up to the occupation of a considerable proportion 
of its agricultural area. Amongst the sportsmen of later years 
have been some very observing amateur naturalists who have 
noted this unmistakable retrocession of the species. With 
characteristic pains, Dr. Coues approximatey traced the 
southern lines of distribution of this species across Minnesota 
in 1873, along the course of which an occasional “blackfoot ” 
may still be found, but the representative numbers have de- 
flected the aggregate line far to the north of west since that 
time. In other werds, the other species has overflowed and 
buried it measurably out of sight for a considerable distance 
north and east. This leaves the area over which both species 
are in mutual possession much broader than formerly. 
About the first of April, the booming of the males is heard. 
Coues says in Birds of the N. W., ‘‘at the rallying cry the 
birds assemble in numbers of both sexes, at some favorable 
spot, and a singular scene ensues as the courtship progresses. 
