THE CANADIAN RUFFED GROUSE. 67 



latter part of May or early in June. Being composed chiefly of spruce and 

 fir, it burns very rapidly. I found two nests (or rather the remains, for the 

 eggs were badly scorched) in one of these burnt fallows, and a few feet from 

 each nest the bones of the mother Grouse. A farmer acquaintance told me 

 of finding a nest of this bird, which contained ten eggs, in a fallow he was 

 about to burn, and knowing of another nest with an equal number of eggs, 

 the thought occurred to him to put the eggs in the nest of the other bird 

 that would not be endangered by the fire, and watch developments. He had 

 the satisfaction of knowing that the eggs were hatched." 



A nest of this Grouse was found by Mr. R. MacFarlane, of the Hudson 

 Bay Company, near Fort St. James, British Columbia, May 16, 1889. It con- 

 tained eight nearly fresh, eggs, and was placed close to the foot of a pine tree 

 in a slight depression scratched out by the bird. It was sparingly lined with 

 grass, dry leaves, and a few feathers, and situated near a small lake; the 

 female was snared on the nest. Judging from the number of skins of this 

 Grouse, sent on at the same time, it must be quite common there. 



But one brood is raised in a season. Incubation lasts from twenty-four to 

 twenty-eight days, and does not begin until the clutch is completed, an egg, 

 I believe, being deposited daily. The number of eggs to a set varies from 

 eight to fourteen, rarely more. In form and color these are indistinguishable 

 from those of the former subspecies. In size they average a trifle larger. The 

 mean measurement of thirty-nine specimens in the U. S. National Museum 

 collection is 40 by 31 millimetres, the largest egg of the series measuring 

 44 by 33, the smallest 37 by 29 millimetres. " The type specimen. No. 4772 

 (PI. 2, Fig. 2), selected from a set of eight, one of the darkest colored and most 

 distinctly marked eggs of the entire series, was obtained by J. E,. Willis, near 

 Halifax, Nova Scotia, June, 1861. 



22. Bonasa umbellus umbelloides (Douglas). 



GRAY RUFFED GROUSE. 



Tetrao umbelloides DoUGLAS, Transactions Linusean Society, xvi, 1829, 148. 

 Bonasa umbellus var. umbelloides Baird, Birds of North America, 1858, 935. 

 (B 465*, C 385a, R 473a, C 566, U 300&.) 



Geographical range : Rocky Mountain region of the United States and British 

 America, north to Alaska, east to Manitoba. 



The Gray Ruffed Grouse, the lightest colored of the forms of Bonasa, in 

 which the gray tints strongly predominate over all others, inhabits the central 

 Rocky Mountain system, from latitude 65° (Kaltag Mountains, near the head of 

 Norton Sound) and the valley of the Yukon River in Alaska, south and south- 

 east along the Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers, through British North America, 

 eastern Idaho, Montana, western North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, and Colo- 

 rado. Like the preceding, it is generally a resident and breeds wherever found. 



