212 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



They lay from four to seven white eggs with colored spots. 

 (Hutchins vide Seton-Thompson.) 



308a. Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse. 



Pediocates phasinellus columbianus (Ord) Coues. 1872. 



Very abundant at Indian Head, Assa., 1892, found feeding in 

 stubble fields and around old straw-stacks. The males collect in 

 large numbers on some hill about the end of. April or beginning 

 of May to have their annual dance which they keep up for a 

 month or six weeks. It is almost impossible to drive them away 

 from one of their hills when they are dancing. One day about 

 the middle of May, I shot into a dancing party killing two and 

 wounding another which flew a short distance, I went to get it and 

 before I got back to pick up the dead birds the others were back 

 dancing around them, I fired into them again, killing two and in 

 less than five minutes they were back dancing again as though 

 nothing had happened. {Spreadborougk.) An abundant resident 

 east of the Coast Range ; I found this bird very abundant along 

 the Cariboo Road, from Pavilion Mountain to the 108-Mile post. 

 {Fannin.') Common in some places in the interior, but said by 

 settlers to be constantly diminishing in numbers. {Streator.') This 

 form is very abundant from Manitoba westward, but is not a true 

 prairie species as in the fall and winter it loves the poplar copse, 

 willow thickets and margins of prairies or coulees where there is 

 brush. We have taken it in the foothills, but not high up on the 

 mountains. Mr. Spreadborough reports seeing the last of these 

 birds 25 miles west of Edmonton, Alberta, in 1898. The same form 

 is found at Kamloops and Spence's Bridge, B.C., and is doubtless 

 common in southern British Columbia. ' 



Breeding Notes. — -The nest of this species is placed in the 

 long, rank grass under some tuft that will aid in its concealment, 

 and is usually not far from a tract of brush-land or other cover. 

 It is little more than a slight hollow in the ground, arched over 

 by the grass. The eggs are usually fourteen, but sometimes 

 fifteen or sixteen in number. Immediately before expulsion they 

 are of a delicate bluish-green ; on being laid they show a pur- 

 plish grape-like bloom ; after a few days exposure they become 

 of a deep chocolate brown, with a few dark spots. After a fort- 

 night has transpired they are usually of a dirty white ; this 

 change is partly due to bleaching, and partly to the scratching 



