SHUFELDT. | OSTEOLOGY OF THE TETRAONIDA. 655 
seem to have arisen mainly, as so many varieties doubtless have, from 
climatic influences, due to their inhabiting various geographical areas. 
Canace canadensis is found ranging from northern United States to 
the Arctic seas; west nearly to the Rocky Mountains. (©. canadensis 
Jranklint from northern Rocky Mountains, near United States bound- 
ary, and west to the Coast Range. Canace obscura ranges in the Rocky 
Mountains to the south of South Pass and Sierra Nevada, north to 
Oregon and south to San Francisco Mountains, New Mexico, and finally 
Canace obscura fuliginosa, northwest coast region, from Oregon to Sitka. 
The latter two varieties intergrade at their limits. (Habitat. from Hist. 
N. A. Birds, Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, 1874.) 
The writer has had the pleasure of hunting the Dusky Grouse at 
various times and localities in the mountainous districts of the Territory 
of Wyoming. On one occasion, in the early autumn of 1877, I found 
myself heading a 
file of several 
Sioux Indians, 
winding ny way 
over a well-beaten 
game-path, along 
the side of one of 
the highest peaks 
of the Big Horn 
Mountains. My 
companions were 
armed with the 
well-known car- 
bine, and I had my 
double fowling- 
piece, a weapon 
that none of them 
had ever seen be- 
fore and were evi- 
dently quite curious to see the use and effect of. Suddenly we emerged 
into one of those delightful little open spaces that we occasionally find 
occurring even on the sides of the most rugged ascents. It was devoid 
of trees and carpeted with the greenest of verdure. Hardly had we 
entered this area when away went a magnificent “Blue Grouse” 
from his hiding place and cover. It was the first bird of the kind that 
I had ever seen alive, and the effect could hardly have been less de- 
moralizing than the impression produced upon the renowned Wallace, 
when the first Bird of Paradise dazzled his vision in the jungles of New 
Guinea. Suffice it to say, that, in a twinkling, this vigorous old Grouse 
was entirely out of my reach, and was whirling up the mountain-side 
through the darkpine woods that covered it. 
But my game was not alone in a spot so inviting, for a step or two 
more started two other fine old males of the same bevy. By this time 
self-possession had been entirely recovered, and before this pair could 
reach the confines of the open space in which we were, each had been 
overtaken by the contents of one of the barrels of my breech-loader 
with fatal effect. Before the echoes of the double report had died away 
among the rocky canons, my Indians had these beautiful birds in their 
hands and were closely examining them, apparently looking for some 
immense wound that the bore of my gun certainly seemed capable of 
inflicting. The Indian has, we know, an aggravating way of not show- 
ing his wonderment even on the most startling occasions, and it has 
Canace obscura. 
