PEDIOECETES PHASIANELLUS VAR. COLUMBIANUS. 413 



never so fine and complete as when familiar voices sing the higher notes 

 to the strange deep bass of the Grouse ; heard for the first time, as it 

 was on this occasion, the effect is indescribable. No one could say- 

 whence the sound proceeded, nor how manj^ birds, if more than one, pro- 

 duced it; the hollow reverberations filled the air, more like the lessen- 

 ing echoes of some great instrument far away, than the voice of a bird 

 at hand. I listened to this grand concert, absorbed in the reflections it 

 stirred within me, ng longer alone, but in company I love, till the boom- 

 ing fell less frequently upon my ear, and then ceased — it was broad 

 day; the various birds were about their homely avocations, and I must 

 betake m> self to practical concerns. 



Thus, in no faltering accents of timid expectancy, but in the bold tone 

 of assured success, the Grouse calls upon his intended mate to forget 

 the shyness that will no longer serve their iiurpose; nor does the invi- 

 tation lack defiance to a rival who may j)resume to dispute his rights. 

 At the rallying cry the birds assemble, in numbers of both sexes, at 

 some favorable spot, and a singular scene ensues as the courtship pro- 

 gresses. There is a regular "walk-around," as ludicrous, to the disin- 

 terested observer, as some of the performances on the comic stage. The 

 birds run about in a circle, some to the right, others to the left, crossing 

 each other's path, passing and repassing in stilted attitudes, stopping 

 to bow a,nd squat in extravagant postures, and resuming their course, 

 till one would think their heads as well as their hearts were lost. But 

 this is simply their way, and they amuse themselves in such fashion till 

 the affair is settled. The cocks have bristled and swelled, strutted and 

 fought, till some have proven their claims to first choice, and others have 

 concluded to take what they can get. Their subsequent history, I am 

 sorry to state, is neither particnlarly creditable to themselves nor of 

 absorbing interest to us. Leaving them to go about their business in 

 their usual humdrum way, let us look to what now occupies their mates. 



A nest will soon be required for her eggs, and the hen has to select 

 suitable premises, though, being an architect of only the humblest 

 order, she has little building work to do ; and, moreover, not being- 

 fastidious, her choice is made without difSculty. I have found the nests 

 in such various locations that I can hardly determine what her prefer- 

 ence is, if, indeed, she have any. I suppose the site depends much upon 

 circumstances. She will enter a tract overgrown with the low, scrubby 

 willow bushes, so abundant in our higher latitudes, and settle beneath 

 one of these ; she will ramble along the edge of a wooded stream and 

 hide in a patch of tall weeds; she will stroll out on the boundless, bare 

 prairie, and take a tuft of grass at random. But wherever she makes 

 down her bed she is solicitous to conceal it, not only from the rude 

 glances of men, but from the equally cruel eye of her many four-footed 

 enemies. Her method of concealment is most artful — perfected by its 

 witlessness. With admirable instinct, she will avoid a place that offers 

 such chances of concealment as to invite curious search ; her willow 

 bush is the duplicate of a thousand others at hand ; her tuft of grass 

 on the prairie is the counterpart of a million others around ; her nest 

 will be found by accident oftener than by design. And when, stooping 

 over a warm nest on the prairie, whence she has just fluttered in dis- 

 may, we note how exposed it seems, now that it is found ; we wonder 

 how the dozen blades of grass that overarch the eggs, or the rank weed 

 that shadows them, could have hidden the home so effectually that we 

 nearly trod upon the bird before we saw her. She is now but a few yards 

 off', in plain view, amid the scrubby prairie herbage, perhaps squat- 

 ting, but more likely moving away with a swaying motion of the head 



