SHARP-TAILED GROUSE 257 
rifle shoot off the heads of as many of these birds as 
were needed for eating for the next two or three days. 
“T have only one note on these birds which seems 
particularly worth mentioning, and of this I spoke in 
my report to Colonel William Ludlow, on the birds 
noticed during a reconnaissance to the Black Hills of 
Dakota in 1874, which was published by the Engineer 
Bureau of the War Department. The sharp-tailed 
grouse has a cry which is unlike that of any other 
grouse with which I am familiar, although something 
very similar has been observed in the case, I think, of 
one of the ptarmigans. On the plains of Dakota in 
1874, having scattered a brood of sharp-tailed grouse, 
consisting of a mother and a dozen well-grown young, 
I sat down to wait for them to get together. The 
mother had flown to the top of a hill not far off, where 
she sat on the ground in plain sight, and after a few 
moments began to call to the young, which immediately 
answered her from the different points where they had 
taken refuge. The call of the mother and the young 
was a guttural, raucous croak, which quite closely re- 
sembled the croaking of a raven at a little distance. 
I plainly saw the old bird utter its note, and subse- 
quently followed up the calls uttered by more than 
one of the young ones, until I started them, and killed 
one or two as they flew.” 
In winter the food of the sharp-tailed grouse consists 
largely of rose-berries and the buds of willows, cotton- 
woods and aspens. In summer and autumn, grass- 
hoppers, insects and various. berries, together with 
