THE SAGE GROUSE IN WYOMING 



NEXT to the Wild Turkey, the Sage Grouse is the largest of North 

 American game birds. Its range is restricted to the high, 

 sagebrush {Artemisia tridentata) plains of the West, from 

 western Nebraska and western Dakota north to, and in places slightly 

 beyond, the Canadian boundary, west to eastern Oregon and north- 

 eastern California, east of the Sierras, and south through Utah and 

 Nevada. 



Within these limits the Sage Grouse is resident, but it migrates 

 locally at the approach of winter from higher to lower altitudes, as the 

 snows deprive it of its food. This consists largely of the leaves of the 

 sagebrush, but in summer the leaves and seeds of other plants are 

 eaten. When feeding on sagebrush leaves, the flesh of the old birds is 

 flavored by the nature of their food, but the birds of the year are very 

 palatable. 



The Sage Grouse begins to mate very early in the spring, or, in some 

 localities, as soon as late February, and at this season the males indulge 

 in the most remarkable performances, inflating the yellow sacs at either 

 side of the neck, spreading the tail, dropping the wings and strutting 

 like a turkey cock. 



At times the bird varies this performance by plowing its breast 

 along the ground as it utters a "variety of chuckling, cackling or rumb- 

 ling sounds." This habit is represented by one of the birds in the 

 group, and is the cause of the abraded condition of the breast feathers 

 of the cock Grouse. 



The nest is a slight affair, usually placed beneath a sagebrush where 

 it is often found by a marauding coyote. The hens hatch the eggs and 

 raise the young unaided by the male, which, when its mate begins to sit, 

 joins with others of its sex to form flocks composed only of males. 



When the young are grown the sexes mingle in great bands, which 

 formerly contained thousands of birds. The birds drink: night and 

 morning at some regularly frequented spring, about which they some- 

 times gather so thickly that they must await their turn to reach the 

 water. 



The studies for this group were made at Medicine Bow, Wyoming, 

 on the line of the Union Pacific Railway. The mountain to the right 

 is Elk Mountain; those in the distance belong to the Snowy Range of 

 Colorado. 



