410 PEDIOSCETES PHASIANELLUS VAR. COLUMBIANUS. 



Illinois." This leads to the inference that not long previously the bird 

 inhabited all suitable prairie land of Michigan,* Minnesota, and Iowa, 

 intervening between the point indicated and its present habitat. What 

 this now is 1 am able to show with accuracy, thanks to the kindness of 

 several friends, who have noted, in Minnesota, a gradual restriction of 

 the Sharp-tailed and corresponding advance of the Pinnated. My friend. 

 Surgeon J. F. Head, United States Army, writes me that General H. H. 

 "Sibley, a keen sportsman and pretty accurate scientific observer, who 

 lived at the mouth of the Minnesota Eiver long before St. Paul was 

 settled, states that formerly the Sharp-tailed Grouse was the prevailing, 

 if not the only, species there, and that it has been replaced by T. ctipido 

 ■within his own memory. A paper which Dr. Head prepared in 1853, 

 gave T. enpido as the Grouse about Fort Kipley, Minnesota, but he lately 

 told me that this was a mistake, the bird of that vicinity being then the 

 Sharp-tailed, and the Pinnated being only just now approaching that 

 locality. For in September, 1873, the Doctor, witb some friends, shot a 

 young but full-grown solitary T. cupido — " so far as I know," he writes, 

 "the first instance of its occurrence in this vicinity. The iilacewas 

 remote from any cultivated ground ; and within a few minutes several 

 individuals of the Sharp-tailed Grouse were shot." In another commu- 

 cation kindly offered me. Dr. Head states further : " The Sharp tailed 

 Grouse is found in great abundance from the Mississippi to the Eed 

 Eiver of the Iforth j * * * * the Grouse now inhabiting the region 

 about St. Paul is the T. cupido — a few of the Sharp-tailed are still 

 found near White Bear Lake, abemt twelve miles north of this city. 

 The dividing line between T. cupido and T. phasianelhis runs probably 

 not more thim fifteen or twenty miles north of the Falls of St. Anthony, 

 bending thence to the southwest, or in the direction of Yankton. T. 

 c%ipido appears to replace the other as the wheat-fields advance." 



The accuracy of this line determined by Dr. Head is verified by other 

 observations. Its southwest trend is confirmed by Mr. Trippe, as above 

 cited, who believes that the Sharp-tailed scarcely t comes into Iowa; 

 and more particularly by my own observations, between Fort Eaudall 

 and Yankton. In this stretch of seventy-five miles along tne Missouri 

 the normal dividing-line runs somewhere — the two species interdigita- 

 ting, however, to such an extent that it cannot be precisely fixed. How 

 many Sharp-tailed, if any, are still found about Yankton, 1 cannot say; 

 but there the Pinnated is the prevailing form, and so numerous that I 

 have known them to be trapped and used instead of tame Pigeons in a 

 shooting-match. Starting up the river they accompany us part of the 

 day, till suddenly one of the " White-bellies " whirs up from the road- 

 side, and we are soon fairly among them. At Fort Eandall they are 

 the prevailing species ; so nearly exclusively, that in the course of my 

 six months' residence there, I never became aware of the occurrence of 

 the other, excepting in three instances, although officers and others, 

 beside myself, did a good deal of shooting. The Gupidones are unques- 

 tionably creeping up the Missouri, just as the Quail have already done, 

 although they have not, apparently, as yet progressed quite so lar ; and 

 with their advance, the Sharp-tailed are probably receding along this 

 line as elsewhere. There may be some antagonism, or other incompati- 

 bility, between the two species; but more probably the different con- 

 ditions of environment, induced by the settling of the country, are the 



* p^ort William, on the northern shore of Lake Superior, is among the earher 

 localities cited. 



+ But I am reliably informed of its occurrence, with Oupidonia, in northwestern por- 

 tions of Iowa. 



