DUSKY GROUSE 119 
with a jerky movement of his head utter his boom, 
or hoot, boom-boom-boom. As he grew more and 
more demonstrative in his actions, his modest mate 
flew up to an overhanging limb to escape his familiari- 
ties, and we drove away, leaving him still strutting on 
the ground underneath the tree where his mate sat 
perched.” 
Another writer refers to the sound uttered at this 
season by the male dusky grouse as “growling” or 
“groaning,” and notes, as have many others, the pe- 
culiarity that when near it often seems quite distant, 
and when distant it sometimes seems near, appearing to 
come from every direction but the true one. 
The female usually makes her nest in the open at the 
foot of the mountains, quite a little way from 
the timber, perhaps under some little clump of brush at 
the foot of a steep bluff, partly clad with pines, or 
perhaps among the aspens in some mountain valley. 
The eggs vary in number from seven to fifteen, and 
perhaps are oftenest nearer the smaller number. They 
are buffy in color and are usually more or less thickly 
spotted with fine dots of reddish brown or even choco- 
late. These dots and spots are usually quite distinct 
and seldom or never run into blotches and cloudings, 
as is usually the case with the eggs of the ptarmigan. 
After the nest is constructed and the eggs are laid, 
the male leaves his mate and by slow stages betakes 
himself to the mountain-tops, where, in midsummer, 
old cocks and barren hens are found in the extreme 
edge of the timber, and very often on the alpine mea- 
