CHAPTER XXIII. 



165 



pleasing to the eye than the stomach. It is a fine appearing bird, the 

 largest of the family in America. The courtship of the male is a remark- 

 able performance, during which the bare yellow spots indicating the air 

 sacs are enormously expanded, producing a strange sound. Perhaps 

 the most peculiar feature of the bird, is that unlike all other gal- 

 linaceous birds It has no gizzard. 



The common grouse of the Forest Reserves is the Sooty grouse — 



Den dragapus obscurus fuliginosus — also called the California grouse 



t ^ ' — 



Heati ot yuail. Life bizc. 



by some sportmen. Mr. F. S. Daggett tells me that me that he has seen 

 it on the head waters of the Tule river, and has shot it at the head 

 waters of the Kern river not far from Mount Whitney. It inhabits the 

 evergreen forests of the Sierra Nevadas six thousand feet above the sea 

 in summer, but in winter is found on the lower spurs at an altitude of 

 two thousand feet. In the early spring the wanderer through the for- 

 ests may hear the remarkable love note of the male, produced by con- 



