288 AMERICAN GAME. 
rejoices like a veritable grand Signor in a multiplicity of 
fair sultanas, whom so soon as they betake themselves to 
the cares of maternity, he abandons, like a roué as he is, 
and passes the remainder of the season, until the broods 
disperse in the autumn, in company with small packs of 
his own faithless sex, reveling and enjoying himself on 
the mountain sides, in his loved pines and hemlocks, 
while his forgotten loves brood patient over the hopes of 
the coming season. 
“This drumming,” says Wilson, in his eloquent and 
animated page, “is most common in spring, and is the 
cal] of the cock to a favorite female. It is produced in 
the following manner: the bird, standing on an old pros- 
trate log, generally in a retired situation, lowers his 
wings, erects his expanded tail, contracts his throat, 
elevates the two tufts of feathers on the neck, and 
inflates his whole body something in the manner of a 
Turkey cock strutting and wheeling about in great state- 
liness. After a few mancouvres of this kind, he begins 
to strike his stiffened wings in short and quick strokes, 
which become more and more rapid until they run into 
each other, resembling the rumbling sound of very 
distant thunder dying away gradually on the ear. After 
a few minutes’ panse, this is again repeated, and in a 
calm day may be heard nearly a mile off. This is most 
common in the morning and evening, though I have 
heard them drumming at all hours of the day.” 
It is singular, that so exact an authority as Wilsou 
