Grey Ruffled Grouse 147 
Gale. Henshaw’s nest, which contained seven eggs 
about to hatch, was found on the Upper Rio Grande 
on June 18th. 
Genus BONASA. 
Head with a full, soft crest ; base of the neck with a ruff of black, 
fan-shaped feathers, concealing a rudimentary drum; less developed 
in the female ; tail of normally eighteen feathers, long, nearly equalling 
the wing, truncate and slightly rounded ; tarsus half bare of feathers, 
covered in front by two or three rows of scutes. 
One species only, confined to North America, but forming three local 
races, makes up this genus. 
Grey Ruffled Grouse. Bonasa umbellus umbelloides. 
A.O.U. Checklist no 300b—Colorado Records—Allen 72, p. 181; 
Morrison 88, p. 139; 89, p. 181; Cooke 97, pp. 70, 159, 202. 
Description.— Above variegated brown, black, white and grey, chiefly 
the latter, spotted with paler dark-edged cordate or arrow-headed 
markings on the back and rump; tail-feathers grey, vermiculated 
with black and with a subterminal black band; below whitish, tinged 
with tawny, with brown cross-bars on most of the feathers ; fore-neck 
and throat mingled brown, grey and white; on each side of the neck 
covering the shoulders a tuft of broad, soft, spreading, glossy, greenish- 
black feathers—the ruff or ruffle. Length about 17-0; wing 7-25; 
tail 6-50; culmen -70; tarsus 1-65. 
The female is smaller—wing 6-75—and has the ruffle less developed 
or even obsolete. Young birds are somewhat similar, but with more 
brown and without ruffles. 
Distribution.—The Rocky Mountains region of North America from 
Alaska and Yukon to Utah and Colorado. 
The Ruffled Grouse is a very rare bird in Colorado, but appears to 
be a resident at lower elevations in the mountains. An example was 
shot and others seen about eighteen miles south of Denver in December, 
1894 (Cooke); Mr. L. D. Gilmore saw five near Sweetwater Lake in 
Garfield co., January 3rd, 1898, and several more subsequently, while 
Cooke was fortunate enough to see w family of old and young birds, 
August 12th, 1899, on the South Fork in Estes Park, which seems to 
point to their having bred in Colorado. There is no other definite 
record. 
Habits.—The Ruffled Grouse is celebrated for its 
“drumming,” a performance carried out by the male 
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