Bob Whites, Grouse, etc. 



inflated at will ; and as the air escapes, a strange grumbling, 

 groaning sound comes forth, seemingly from quite a distance, 

 when perhaps very near, or, at least, from just the direction 

 that it seems not to come from. This sound, that has been aptly 

 likened to the distant laboring of a "small mountain sawmill 

 wrestling in agony with some cross-grained log," may be uttered 

 from a stump or rock, or in the air as the cock flies about from 

 limb to limb of the evergreens. When disturbed, he has the habit 

 of erecting the feathers on the back of his neck, a feeble showing 

 as compared with the imposing black frill of the ruffed grouse. 



Canada Grouse 



(Dendragapus canadensis) 



Called also: SPRUCE, WOOD, and SPOTTED~GROUSE; 

 BLACK, SWAMP, and SPRUCE PARTRIDGE; BLACK- 

 SPOTTED HEATH COCK. 



(Illustration facing p. 272) 



Length — 14 to 15 inches. 



Male — Upper parts ashy waved with black, gray, and grayish- 

 brown. A few white streaks on shoulders; tail black, slightly 

 rounded, and tipped with orange-brown ; under parts black 

 and white, the black throat divided from the black breast by 

 a mottled black and white and ashy circular band; flanks 

 pale brown, mottled or lined across with black; legs feath- 

 ered to toes ; bill black ; a yellow or reddish comb over eye. 



Female— \^^^e.x parts barred with black, gray, and buff, or pale 

 rufous, the black predominating, except on grayish lower 

 back; tail black, mottled and more narrowly tipped with 

 orange brown than male's; under parts tawny barred with 

 black; sides mottled with black and tawny; below black, 

 the feathers broadly tipped with white. 



Range — From northern New England, New York, Michigan, 

 and Minnesota, westward to Alaska, and north so far as 

 trees grow. 



Season — Permanent resident ; not a migrant, although a rover. 



Only along the northern boundary of the United States may 

 one hope to meet this small, hardy grouse walking about with 

 the nimble steps of a Bob White, over the mossy bogs, in groves 

 of evergreens and thickets of hackmatack — everywhere its favorite 

 haunt; but in Canada it becomes increasingly abundant, and the 



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