278 PINNATED GROUSE. 



rain, water is very rarely to be met witli. For the space of a week he 

 watched her closely to discover whether she still refused to drink ; but, 

 though she was constantly fed on Indian corn, the cup and water still 

 remained untouched and untasted. Yet no sooner did he again sprinkle 

 water on the bars of the cage, than she eagerly and rapidly picked 

 them off as before. 



The last, and probably the strongest inducement to their preferring 

 these plains, is the small acorn of the shrub-oak ; the strawberries, 

 huckleberries, and partridgeberries with which they abound, and which 

 constitute the principal part of the food of these birds. These brushy 

 thickets also afford them excellent shelter, being almost impenetrable to 

 dogs or birds of prey. 



In all these places where they inhabit they are, in the strictest sense 

 of the word, resident ; having their particular haunts, and places of 

 rendezvous (as described in the preceding account), to which they are 

 strongly attached. Yet they have been known to abandon an entire 

 tract of such country, when, from whatever cause it might proceed, it 

 became again covered with forest. A few miles south of the town of 

 York, in Pennsylvania, commences an extent of country, formerly of 

 the character described, now chiefly covered with wood ; but still retain- 

 ing the name of Barrens. In the recollection of an old man born in that 

 part of the country, this tract abounded with Grouse. 



The timber growing up, in progress of years, these birds totally dis- 

 appeared; and for a long period of time he had seen none of them; 

 until migrating with his family to Kentucky, on entering the Barrens 

 he one morning recognised the well known music of his old acquaint- 

 ance the Grouse ; which he assures me are the very same with those he 

 had known in Pennsylvania. 



But what appears to me the most remarkable circumstance relative 

 to this bird is, that not one of all those writers who have attempted its 

 history has taken the least notice of those two extraordinary bags of 

 yellow skin which mark the neck of the male, and which constitute so 

 striking a peculiarity. These appear to be formed by an expansion of 

 the gullet as well as of the exterior skin of the neck, which, when the 

 bird is at rest, hangs in loose pendulous wrinkled folds, along the side 

 of the neck, the supplemental wings, at the same time, as well as when 

 the bird is flying, lying along the neck in the manner represented in 

 one of the distant figures in the plate. But when these bags are in- 

 flated with air, in breeding time, they are equal in size and very much 

 resemble in color, a middle sized fully ripe orange. By means of this 

 curious apparatus, which is very observable several hundred yards off, 

 he is enabled to produce the extraordinary sound mentioned above, 

 which, though it may easily be imitated, is yet difiicult to describe by 

 words. It consists of three notes, of the same tone, resembling those 



