406 THE PRAIRIE CHICKEN, OR SHARPTAILED GROUSE. 



early spring they begin to drop off, just an odd one adhering here 

 and there. In a week or two they are all gone, and during the 

 summer the toes are clean and smooth. After the second or third 

 week of the young one's lives, (that would be mid- August or earlier) 

 both young and parents begin to show a row of growing scales along 

 each toe. These grow with the growth of the chicks, and by October 

 the birds are full grown, as are their toe combs and those of the 

 parents. Then, since these combs exist only in winter, it is natural to 

 suppose they are meant to act as snowshoes, and to stay the bird from 

 slipping on the crust and icy limbs of the frees whose browse forms 

 its winter food. These snow combs continue in perfection during 

 the six months of winter, but with the first return of warm weather 

 they are shed. 



The tail feathers, of which I have already spoken, are worthy of 

 notice. They are exceedingly stiff and I may say sonorous. When 

 the male is strutting before the female, or when either is shot and 

 dying, the tail is rapidly opened and shut, the stiff quills making a 

 loud noise like a porcupine's quills, or like shaking a newspaper. 

 The muscles for expanding the tail seem to be very largely developed- 



The chickens winter in the dense bush, but in spring, ere yet the 

 snow is gone, they scatter over the prairies, where alone they are 

 found in summer. They are now very shy, for only the shy and 

 wary ones have successfully run the gauntlet of such winter hunters 

 as owls, foxes, wolves, martens, Indians, etc. 



Their advent on the still snow-covered plains might be reckoned 

 premature and fatal to many, but they find a good friend in the 

 wild rose. It is abundant everywhere, and the red hips, unlike 

 other fruit, continue to hang on the stiff stems, high above the 

 damage of wet and earth. It grows most abundantly on the high 

 sandy knolls, where the snow is thinnest, so here the grouse meet 

 and are fed. In this section of the North- West stones or gravel are 

 almost unknown, so birds requiring such for digestive purposes 

 would be in a dilemma, but that the stones in the rose hips answer 

 perfectly, thus the hip supplies them with both millstones and grist 

 at once, the flesh at the same time receiving a most delicate flavor. 

 While from the same cause the gizzard of a newly-killed grouse is of 

 a most pleasing odor of rose. 



It is difficult to over-estimate the importance of the rose to this 



