SPOTTED GROUSE. 311 



informs us that this bird is common from Lake Huton to the sources of 

 the Mississippi, being called in the Chippeway language, Mushcodasee, 

 i. e.. Partridge of the Plains. 



The favorite haunts of the Spotted Grouse are pine woods and dark 

 cedar swampa, in ■winter resorting to the deep forests of spruce to feed 

 on the tops and leaves of these evergreens, as ■well as on the seeds con- 

 tained in their cones, and on juniper berries. Hence their flesh, though 

 at all times good, is much better in summer, as in ■winter it has a stronLi 

 flavor of spruce. At Hudson's Bay, where they are called indifferently 

 Wood or Spruce Partridge, they are seen throughout the year. Like 

 other Grouse, they build on the ground, laying perhaps fewer eggs : 

 these are varied with white, yellow, and black. They are easily ap- 

 proached, being unsuspicious, and by no means so shy as the common 

 Ruffed Grouse, and are killed or trapped in numbers without much 

 artifice being necessary for this purpose. When much disturbed, like 

 their kindred species they are apt to resort to trees, where, by using the 

 precaution of always shooting the lowest, the whole of the terrified 

 flock may be brought down to the last bird. 



The Spotted Grouse is smaller than the common Partridge or Phea- 

 sant, being but fifteen inches in length. The bill is black, seven-eighths 

 of an inch long. The general color of the plumage is made up of black 

 and gray mingled in transverse wavy crescents, with a few of grayish 

 rufous on the neck. The small feathers covering the nostrils are deep 

 velvety black. The feathers may all be called black as to the ground 

 color, and blackish plumbeous at the base ; on the crown, upper sides 

 of the head above the eye, and the anterior portion of the neck, they 

 have each two gray bands or small crescents, and tipped with a third ; 

 these parts, owing to the gray margin of the feathers being very broad, 

 appear nearly all gray. These longer feathers of the lower part of the 

 neck above, and between the shoulders, are more broadly and deeply 

 black, each with a reddish band, and gray only at tip ; the lowest have 

 even two reddish bands, which pass gradually into grayish ; a few of the 

 lateral feathers of the neck are almost pure white, all the remaining 

 feathers of the upper parts of the body have two grayish bands, besides 

 a slight tip of the same color, some of the lowest and longest having 

 even three of these bands besides the tip. The very long upper tail- 

 coverts are well distinguished, not only by their shape, but also by their 

 colors, being black brown, thickly sprinkled on the margins with grayish 

 rusty, and a pretty well defined band of that color towards the point, 

 then a narrow one of deep black, and are broadly tipped with whitish 

 gray, more or less pure in different specimens ; their shafts also are 

 brownish rusty. The sides of the head beneath the eyes, together with 

 the throat, are .deep black with pure white spots, the white lying curi- 

 ously upon the feathers, so as to form a band about the middle, con- 



