THE PINNATED GROUSE. 



491 



by man or beasts of prey, has been known to remove the eggs to some other locality, where 

 she thinks they will not be discovered. 



The nest is a careless kind of structure, of grasses and stout herbage, and is placed on the 

 ground under the shelter of grass or bushes. The female lays about six or ten eggs of a 

 yellowish-gray diversified with spots of light brown. The young are fed first upon insects and 

 their larvse, and afterwards on berries, grain, the buds and young shoots of trees. 



It is a wild and wary bird, requiring much care on the part of the sportsman to get within 

 fair gunshot. The old male which has survived a season or two is particularly shy and crafty, 

 distrusting both man and dog, and running away as fast as his legs can carry him as soon as he 

 is made awai'e of the approaching danger. 



In the autumn the young males separate themselves from the other sex, and form a 

 number of little bachelor establishments of their own, living together in harmony until the 

 next breeding season, when they all begin to fall in love ; the apple of discord is thrown 

 among them by the charms of the hitherto repudiated sex, and their rivalries lead them into 

 determined and continual battles, which do not cease until the end of the season restores them 

 to peace and sobriety, and they need fear no foes save the beasts and birds of prey, and their 

 worst enemy, the autumnal European statesman. 



PINNATED GROUSE.— Cupic/onia atpido. 



The general color of the adult male bird is black glossed with blue and purple, except a 

 white band across each wing. The under tail-coverts are white. The remarkable form of the 

 tail is caused by the peculiar development of the exterior feathers, three, four, or even five of 

 which are laterally curved, the outermost being the longest and having the most decided curve. 

 Their ends are somewhat squared. The coloring of the female is quite different. Her general 

 color is brown, with a tinge of orange, barred with black and speckled with the same line, the 

 spots and bars being larger on the breast, back, and wings, and the feathers on the breast more 

 or less edged with white. The under tail-coverts are grayish-white. The total length of the 

 adult male is about twenty-two inches, and that of the female from seventeen to eighteen 

 inches. She also weighs nearly one-third less than her mate, and is popularly termed the 

 Heath Hen. 



Another fine species of this group is the Pinnated (trouse of North America. 



This bird is found almost wholly in open dry plains on which are a few trees or tufts 



