Bob Whites, Grouse, etc 



Dusky Grouse 



(Dendragapus obscurus) 



Called also: BLUE, GRAY, MOUNTAIN, PINE, and FOOL 



GROUSE; PINE HEN 



(Illustration facing p. 257) 



Length — 20 to 24 inches ; length variable. 



Male — Upper parts blackish brown, finely zigzagged with 

 slatey gray mixed with lighter brown, and sometimes 

 coarsely mottled with gray, especially on wings; forehead 

 dull reddish brown; back of head blackish, the feathers 

 tipped with rusty; sides of head black; shoulders streaked 

 with white; long feathers on sides have white ends and 

 shaft stripes; throat white, finely speckled with black; under 

 parts bluish gray or slate, varied with white on flanks and 

 underneath. Tail rounded, the twenty broad feathers black- 

 ish-brown, marbled with gray, and broadly banded across 

 end with slate gray ; legs covered to toes with pale brown 

 feathers; a comb over eye; bill horn color. 



Female — Smaller, lighter, more mottled, or blotched with blackish 

 and tawny or buff, the feathers generally edged with white ; 

 slate gray under parts, and tail broadly banded with same ; 

 the flanks tipped with white and mottled with black and 

 buff. 



Range — Rocky and other mountain ranges in western United 

 States. 



Season — Permanent resident. 



Two variations of the dusky grouse, known as Richardson's 

 grouse and the sooty grouse — constantly confused in reports — 

 make it somewhat difficult to define the exact habitat of this 

 splendid game bird, so well known in one form or another by 

 sportsmen throughout the western half of the United States, from 

 New Mexico to Alaska and British Columbia. The habits of all 

 three birds being practically the same, their plumage differing 

 chiefly in degrees of duskiness, and their boundary lines con- 

 stantly overlapping, it is small wonder the untrained observer 

 confuses both their names and ranges. The Rocky Mountains, 

 from central Montana and southeastern Idaho to New Mexico 

 and Arizona, eastward to the Black Hills, South Dakota, and 

 westward to East Humboldt Mountains, Nevada, is the range set 

 down for the dusky grouse by the A. O. U., and a more westerly 



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