182 UPLAITD SHOOTING. 



specific difference, and the eggs of the prairie sharp-tail 

 are a trifle shorter than are those of her mountain sister. 

 It can not be supposed that during the whole of oar 

 excursion we devote ourselves to the sharp-tail. Guides 

 and cow-boys have told us strange tales about the ' • fool- 

 hen,"' that lives among the pine and spruce, above the 

 white-leaved poplars, close to the snow-belt. If such a 

 bird exists, we must find it, and hence a hunt for the 



SPRUCE GROUSE. 



This bird belongs to the genus Dendragapvs, which 

 is well represented in the Xorthern United States and 

 throughout British America. The Dendragap i are divided 

 into two families. The first of these is distinguished by 

 a tail of twenty feathers, and the sides of the neck are, 

 in the male, with distinct inflatable air-sacs. Its mem- 

 bers live in the Far West, and are the dusky grouse, with 

 the varieties known as the sooty grouse and Richardson's 

 grouse. The members of the second family have but six- 

 teen tail-feathers, and the males have no apparent air- 

 sac on the side of the neck. To it belongs the Canada 

 gTouse, or spruce partridge, of the Xortheast, and Frank- 

 lin's grouse of Xorthem Montana, Idaho, and the Cas- 

 cade Ranges. Throughout the West these species are 

 known, indiscriminately, as spruce grouse, jDine grouse, 

 black grouse, mountain grouse, gTay grouse, hill-cock, 

 and fool-hen, the last term being the one most commonly 

 in use. All -varieties of the dusky grouse resemble the 

 typical Bendragapus obscurus in appearance and habit. 

 Above, they are a dusky gray or dull blackish (a blue- 

 black in the sooty grouse), usually more or less mottled, 

 especially on the wings; tail, black, generally with a 

 broad tenninal band of gray; lower parts, chiefly a plain 

 slate-gray, more or less varied with white on the flanks. 

 The female is distinguished by faint buflfy or brownish 



