24 GROUSE AND WILD TXJKKEYS OP UNITED STATES. 



on the sides of his neck until they look like small oranges, and then 

 goes through a droll performance, throwing himself forward on his 

 breast and plowing along the ground until the breast feathers are 

 almost completely worn away. The hen is captivated by these 

 grotesque antics, and in due time chooses a mate and nests in a small 

 depression in the ground under the shelter of a bush, where she lays 

 about ten olive-buff eggs with chocolate markings. The cock leaves 

 her before incubation begins, and in about three weeks the chicks are 

 out. A young covey roosts in a circle on the ground, bobwhite- 

 fashion. In winter, coveys unite in packs which sometimes number 

 ii hundred or more. 



FOOD HABITS. 



The feeding habits of the sage grouse are peculiar, and its organs 

 of digestion are unlike those of other grouse. The stomach is not 

 differentiated into a powerful grinding gizzard, but is a thin, weak, 

 membranous bag, resembling the stomach of a raptorial bird. Such 

 an organ is evidently designed for the digestion of soft food, and we 

 find that the bulk of the sage grouse's diet consists of leaves and 

 tender shoots. A stomach collected September 7, 1890, in Idaho, by 

 Dr. C. Hart Merriam, contained leaves of sage and other plants, 

 seeds, and a ladybird beetle {C occinellidce) . Four birds shot in 

 Wyoming during May and September by Vernon Bailey had gorged 

 themselves with the leaves of sagebrush {Artemisia tridentata). 

 This and other sages, including A. cana and A. frigida, furnish the 

 bulk of the food of the sage grouse. Other food is taken, but it is 

 comparatively insignificant. B. H. Dutcher, formerly of the Bio- 

 logical Survey, examined a stomach which, besides sagebrush leaves, 

 contained seeds, flowers, buds of Rhus trilobata, and ants and grass- 

 hoppers. Three birds collected by Vernon Bailey on September 5, 

 in Wyoming, had varied their sagebrush fare with ladybird "beetles, 

 ground beetles (Carabidw), fly larvse, ants, moths, grasshoppers 

 {Melanoplus sp.) , and the leaves of asters and yarrow. Of two birds 

 killed in May, one had fed wholly on the leaves of sagebrush {Arte- 

 misia tridentata) , while the other in addition had taken insect galls 

 from sagebrush and the flowers and flower buds of a phlox {Phlox 

 douglasii) , together with some undetermined seed capsules, pieces of 

 moss, and several ants. A third bird, killed in July, had eaten a 

 few plant stems and numerous grasshoppers. 



Major Bendire writes that the diet of the sage grouse includes 

 grass spikes, the tops of leguminous plants, including blossoms and 

 pods of vetch {Vicia) and astragalus; also, that the bird eats golden- 

 rod, and will go far to get a morning feed of wheat. He notes that 

 also berries, grasshoppers, and crickets {Anahrus simplew) are eaten." 



"Life Hist. N. A. Birds, [I], pp. 107-108, 1892. 



