SAGE-HEN 569 



a circle on the ground Etfter the manner of the Bobwhite Quail 

 (Judd, 1905, p. 24). A female when surprised with her brood 

 makes a great demonstration, attempting thereby to distract atten- 

 tion. The chicks when feeding together are said to call constantly 

 to one another with low peeping cries which are audible only for a 

 short distance. 



After the young birds have learned to fly, they descend f]*om the 

 uplands down along the larger canons, often invading the meadow 

 lands, where small, tender weeds are added to their diet. At such 

 places the young birds may gather into large flocks. When ap- 

 proached they crane their necks and make a weak attempt at cack- 

 ling. "When closely pressed they run rather than fly. By the last 

 of August or early September the young birds are joined by the old 

 male birds, which come off the higher slopes and ridges where they 

 have stayed during the summer, and large flocks become the rule. 

 The rigor of winter causes a scarcity of food and by spring most of 

 the birds are poor in flesh as well as shabby in plumage. The young 

 attain the size of the adults by November (E. H. Ober, MS, writing 

 from Mono and Inyo counties). 



The Sage-hen finds flight laborious, and resorts to it only when 

 in great peril. Its vigorous wing-beats on rising from the ground 

 cause a loud whir which has a startling effect upon the intruder. 

 When once the bird is under way its flight is very swift and is char- 

 acterized by alternate rapid beating of the wings and sailing on set, 

 down-curved wings. If it has been badly frightened it will fly a con- 

 siderable distance ; otherwise it will alight again within a few hundred 

 feet. 



The call-note most frequently heard is usually described as a short 

 guttural cackle, given when the birds rise from the ground. The sound 

 is like the syllables kuk, kuk, kuk, slowly repeated (Grinnell, MS), or 

 iuk-a-tuk repeated rapidly (Huntington, 1897, p. 17). The "drum- 

 ming" of the male, which has already been described, is to be heard 

 only during the breeding season. 



Newberry (1857, pp. 95-96), the first of the early explorers to 

 record the Sage-hen definitely in this state, gives the following account 

 of its habits : 



This bird . . . belongs to the fauna of the interior basin. . . . We first met 

 with it high up on Pit river, at the point where we left it and crossed over to 

 the lakes. . . . Follo^ving up the little stream toward the spring on the hill-side, 

 a dry, treeless surface with patches of "sage bushes," ... I was suddenly 

 startled by a great flutter and rush, and a dark bird, that appeared to me as large 

 as a turkey, rose from the ground near me, and, uttering a hoarse hck, hek, flew 

 off with an irregular, but remarkably well sustained flight. . . . But stop he 

 did not, so long as I could see him, now flapping, now sailing, he kept on his 

 course till he disappeared behind a hill a mile away. . . . 



