BIRDS. 137 



passed the time eating fir needles. When surprised by our appear- 

 ance the little fellows ran crouching down the trail showing a keen 

 hiding instinct, but their mother had little sense of danger. When 

 the young were approached she merely turned her head over and 

 called mildly in soft remonstrance. She w;is the genuine fool hen of 

 Montana, we were told, whom the Pdatheads and the mountain 

 Indians never kill except when in great need of food, as the birds 

 are so tame they can be snared at will, without ammunition; as the 

 Indians say, with string from a moccasin. 



The same brood, we supposed, was met with a few days later on 

 the same trail. One of the young was in the trail and the mother 

 was sitting on a log when we came up, but on seeing us she called 

 the little ones into the bushes. When driven out for a better view 

 she climbed a bank adorned with bear grass, dwarf brake, and linnaea 

 carpet, and, stopping under a long drooping spray of Streptopus — 

 imder whose light-green leaves hung beautiful bright red berries — 

 she jumped up again and again to pick off the berries. Then, flying 

 up on a fallen tree trunk almost over my head, she sat there looking 

 very plump and matronly and entirely self-possessed, while I ad- 

 mired the white and tawny pattern of her plumage. She sat there 

 calmly overlooking the brushy cover where the young were hidden 

 and showed no disapproval when the three came out and walked a 

 log by the trail. She called to them in soft, soothing tones and they 

 answered back in sprightly fashion. It would have been so easy to 

 win their confidence completely and to watch their engaging ways 

 that it was trying to have to leave them and pass on up the trail. 



Gray Eitffed Grotjse : Bonasa umheTlus urnbelloides. — In the 

 pines and aspen thickets of the eastern slope and also in the dense 

 hemlock woods of the western slope of the mountains, one may look 

 for this handsome brown grouse whose crested head, black shoulder 

 ruffs, and banded fan tail give him an alert appearance, and whose 

 loud sonorous drumming is one of the most stirring sounds of the 

 forest. 



" The grouse hatch Ioav," I was told by Mr. Gibl.i, and broods of 

 young were reported in July from the Cracker Lake trail by Mr. 

 M. T. Berger, from Dead Man's Gulch by Mr. Young, the ranger, 

 and from the Iceburg Lake trail about 4 miles above Many Glaciers 

 bv Mr. C. W. (rriffing. "Along in September you find them on the 

 lodgepole pine ridges," Mr. Gibb said, and added that they stay both 

 high and low all winter. From April 12 to 22, 1918, Mr. Bailey 

 found them common along the North Fork of the Flathead, many 

 being seen along the trails and heard drumming in the woods. They 

 are the most abundant grouse of the low valley country. 



In August between Swiftcurrent Creek and Waterton Lake we 

 flushed a number of them along the trail. On the Belly River 



