THE PINNATED GROUSE. 63 
but she seldom flies at him, preferring to lead him away 
from them by various artifices. She warns the brood of 
danger by a single loud cluck, and the moment they hear 
it they disperse in every direction, and squat so close to 
the ground, in the tall grass or grain, that it is almost 
impossible to detect them without the aid of a dog. 
They remain in cover until the mother announces that 
the danger is over and calls them to her side. 
They are so fully developed by the fifteenth of Au- 
gust, although only hatched in June, that they afford 
excellent sport, as they are strong on the wing, and their 
flight, though regular, is rather swift. Being fast run- 
ners, they generally try to escape on foot before attempt- 
ing to use their pinions. The young males are se 
exceedingly combative, that members of the same brood 
indulge in contests in the autumn, but these are generally 
suppressed by the mother before they lead to bloodshed. 
Audubon says that the males which he had domesti- 
cated were conspicuous for their courage, and would even 
fight the turkeys and dunghill cocks rather than yield 
their ground. They were more pugnacious in spring. 
than at any other time, and strutted, tooted, and fought 
each other as they do in the wild state. He found the 
birds of both sexes readily amenable to. domestication, 
for he had sixty in his garden at one time, and they be- 
came so tame during the winter that they would feed 
from his hand. These bred in confinement, but the 
broods were so destructive to vegetation that he was 
compelled to kill them. 
Pinnated grouse are so abundant in portions of the 
West that it is nothing unusual for a person armed with 
a breech-loading gun to bag from twenty to thirty brace in 
a day, but as they increase in numbers wherever civilized 
man settles, there is no danger that they will become 
scarce for many years to come, as they find an abundance 
of food in the numerous insects that live on the prairie, 
