256 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 
and strutting of the partridge, as well as the singing 
of small birds.” 
I have several times witnessed this dancing in No- 
vember, just about the time that cold weather sets in, 
and have seen it carried on for two hours, immediately 
after sunrise, but have never been so fortunate as to get 
close enough to the birds to hear their stamping sound 
like a kettle drum. In the dances I have witnessed, 
there was heard not only the crowing, of which Mr. 
Thompson speaks, but also a sharp, high-pitched cackle, 
each note being separated from the other by a percep- 
tible interval. 
Some years ago I sent Major Bendire some notes 
on this species, which I quote here: “This species is 
partly migratory, and there is the very greatest dif- 
ference in the habits of the birds in summer and winter. 
As soon as the first hard frosts come in the autumn, the 
birds seem to take to the timber and begin to feed on 
the buds of the willow and the quaking aspen. At this 
time they spend a large portion of their time in the 
trees, and are very wild. In the Shirley Basin, in 
western Wyoming, a locality where I have never seen 
any of these birds in summer, they are abundant in 
winter. At this season they live in quaking aspen 
thickets, along the mountains, and there I have seen 
hundreds of them roosting on top of a big barn, which 
stands just at the edge of a grove of quaking aspen 
timber. It was always easy in the morning, just after 
sunrise, to step out of the house, and with a .22 caliber 
