504 COCK OF THE PLAINS. 
same time a rather loud but very short alarmed guttural cackle. The 
notes of thefemale indeedat such timesalmost resemble those of acommon 
Hen. The old male when killed by Dr TownsEnp turned out so different 
from the imperfect and unadult specimens figured, that we could 
scarcely recognise it for the same species. Its size seemed to promise 
a fine meal, but appearances are often deceitful, and after being nicely 
broiled, it truly deserved to be treated like the well-prepared plate 
of cucumbers, proving so very bitter, though delicately white, that 
our hungry hunters could scarcely swallow more than a morsel. In 
short, it feeds by choice on the bitterest shrubs of these sterile plains, 
and under-wood (several species of Artemisia) is literally its favou- 
rite food. Of its nest and breeding habits we ascertained nothing, 
but cannot for a moment hesitate to say that some mistake must ex- 
ist in either asserting or supposing that a bird so constantly confined to 
the open desert plains, could retire to the shady forests and dark al- 
luvial thickets of the Columbia to rear its young apart from their usual 
food and habits. We met with this very fine Grous near to the plains 
around Wallah Wallah, on the south side of the Columbia, but never 
saw it either in the forests of the Columbia or the Wahlamet, nor, 
so far as we know, has it ever been found on the coast of California, or 
in the interior of Mexico. T. NurrTatt.” 
Mr Dove.as’s statement is as follows :—‘ The flight of these birds 
is slow, unsteady, and affords but little amusement to the sportsman. 
From the disproportionately small, convex, thin-quilled wing,—so thin 
that a vacant space half as broad as a quill appears between each,— 
the flight may be said to be a sort of fluttering, more than any thing 
else: the bird giving two or three claps of the wings in quick succes- 
sion, at the same time hurriedly rising ; then shooting or floating, swing- 
ing from side to side, gradually falling, and thus producing a clapping, 
whirring sound. When started, the voice is cuch, cuck, cuck, like the 
Common Pheasant. They pair in March and April. Small eminences 
on the banks of streams are the places usually selected for celebrating 
the weddings, the time generally about sunrise. The wings of the 
male are lowered, buzzing on the ground ; the tail, spread like a fan, 
somewhat erect; the bare yellow cesophagus inflated to a prodigious 
size,—fuily half as large as his body, and, from its soft, membranous 
substance, being well contrasted with the scale-like feathers below it 
on the breast, and the flexile, silky feathers on the neck, which on these 
