56 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



be kept in the same pen, but in July they may be all turned together again, 

 and they will agree very well until the following March." 1 



The Canada Grouse breeds early. Eggs now in the U. S. National 

 Museum collection have been taken by Mr. B. R Ross, of the Hudson Bay 

 Company, near Fort Simpson, British North America, north of latitude 62°, as 

 early as May 23. But a single brood is raised in a season. The number of 

 eggs to a set varies from nine to thirteen, rarely more, usually about eleven, 

 and in exceptional cases as many as sixteen. An egg is deposited every other 

 day, and incubation does not begin till the clutch is completed. In form the 

 eggs vary from ovate to elongate ovate. Their ground color, which is only 

 superficial, is also very variable, ranging from a pale creamy buff to a decided 

 reddish buff or pale cinnamon, and again to brownish buff with intermediate 

 shades. The eggs are irregularly spotted and blotched with reddish brown or 

 burnt umber. The spots vary considerably in size and shape, but are never 

 close enough together to hide the ground color. An occasional specimen is but 

 very slightly marked, and now and then one may be entirely unspotted. 



The average measurement of fifty specimens in the U. S. National Museum 

 collection is 43.5 by 31.5 millimetres, the largest egg measuring 48 by 33, 

 the smallest 41 by 31 millimetres. 



Of the type specimens selected to show the variations in color and mark- 

 ings, No. 22367 (PI. 1, Fig. 20), was taken near Whale River, Ungava Bay, 

 June 3, 1883; Nos. 22398 and 22399 (PI. 1, Figs. 21 and 22), near Fort 

 Chimo, Northeast Territory, Dominion of Canada, both on July 1, 1884. 



These eggs were all collected by Mr. L. M. Turner while on duty as United 

 States signal observer at Fort Chimo, and No. 24024 (PI. 1, Fig. 23), is from a 

 set of thirteen, laid in confinement in the spring of 1890, and purchased, from Mr. 

 W. L. Bishop, Kentville, Nova Scotia. The set from which this specimen is 

 selected is much richer colored than any of the eggs taken from these birds in 

 a wild state, and may be partly caused by the food they received in captivity. 



19. Dendragapus franklinii (Douglas). 



franklin's geouse. 



Tetrao franklinii Douglas, Transactions Linnsean Society, xvi, iii, 1829, 139. 

 Dendragapus franklinii Ridgway, Proceedings U. S. National Museum, vni, 1885, 355. 



(B 461, C 380a, R 472a, C 556, U 299.) 



Geographical range : Northern Rocky Mountains (chiefly north of the United 

 States) and west to the Coast ranges. 



The breeding range of Franklin's Grouse, which still remains one of the 

 rarest birds in the ornithological collections of the United States, extends from 

 about latitude 60°, in southern Alaska, but along the coast only, south through 

 British Columbia and Washington, to northern Oregon, where it reaches its 



1 Forest aDd Stream, May 29, 1890, p. 367. 



