102 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



Mexico, north through western Nebraska, eastern Wyoming, eastern Montana, 

 Minnesota, and the two Dakotas, and extending north of our border into 

 southeastern Assiniboia and southern Manitoba. Specimens taken along the 

 southern portions of these provinces are typical P. phasianellus campestris; 

 and those from middle Manitoba northward to about latitude 52° are inter- 

 mediate between this and P. phasianellus. 



The eastern range of this Grouse is becoming rapidly restricted. In 

 Illinois they are very rarely found now. Col. N. S. Gross reports them as 

 becoming rare in Kansas; and the case is the same in Wisconsin and Iowa. 

 Mr. Denis Gale writes: "The Prairie Sharp-tailed Grouse was quite plentiful 

 fifteen years ago on the plains about Denver, Colorado. They are seldom met 

 with now; the last I saw was in the winter of 1886. In 1885, I met one of 

 these birds far up in the foothills at an elevation of over 8,000 feet. Unlike 

 the Prairie Hen, Tympynuchus americanus, grain and corn fields have but few 

 attractions for these birds; this, and the stamping out by cattle of the whole 

 country's surface, supplemented by the pot hunter's shotgun to secure a 

 toothsome morsel in and out of season, no doubt accounts for their present 

 scarcity." 



Mr. W. M. Wolfe, of Kearney, "Nebraska, says: "The Prairie Sharp-tailed 

 Grouse, P. phasianellus campestris, was formerly abundant in central Nebraska. 

 Now it has retired before civilization, and the Pinnated Grouse has taken 

 its place. Cold winters, notably that of 1885, drive it back into thinly settled 

 regions. In northwestern Nebraska, where both species are still found, they 

 not infrequently mingle in winter, but are bitter enemies in warm weather. 

 Then they have no occasion to be together, for the Sharp-tailed Grouse 

 always prefers its natural food, tender twigs and insects, while the Pinnated 

 Grouse must have grain. A Sharp-tail never loves a wheat field so well as 

 when there is an abundance of grasshoppers to be found there." 



Mr. George Bird Grinnell has kindly furnished me some notes on the 

 habits of the Sharp-tailed Grouse, which are mostly referable to this race. 

 He writes me as follows: "The Sharp-tailed Grouse, which, in certain sections, 

 is called "Speckled Belly" and "Willow" Grouse, I have found in various 

 years almost everywhere west of the Mississippi River, east of the Sierra 

 Nevadas, and north of the Platte River. In the old days it used to be very 

 common all along the Platte and the Loup Rivers in Nebraska, and in the 

 country which lies between these two streams. I have also found it nearly as 

 abundant in the mountains, sometimes even late in the autumn, coming upon 

 single birds or a considerable brood, far up toward the edge of timber in the 

 most narrow wooded ravines. This species is partly migratory, and there is 

 the very greatest difference in the habits of the bird 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 



