The Dusky Grouse 



terns, indeed, are almost identical in outline, but on the forehead, where 

 calij ornica is creamy or yellowish white threaded with blackish, gambeli 

 is black threaded with creamy; and the crown of gambeli is a vivid (an 

 over-roasted) chestnut, where californica is of a most subdued grayish 

 brown. The pattern of the under-plumage, also, while quite different, 

 is still traceably similar. The two species thus evolved in sundered en- 

 vironments have recently been thrown together along a line roughly 

 indicated by the eastern base of the desert-fronting mountains of southern 

 California. It is interesting to notice that invasion has been on the part 

 of the western bird, vallicola, and that hybrids have resulted. Whether 

 or not the offspring of these cousinly reunions are fertile has not been 

 established, as it easily might be by experiment with birds in captivity. 

 So friendly, indeed, have become the relations of the Quails on the eastern 

 base of the San Jacinto Mountains, that the three species, viz. : Mountain, 

 Valley, and Desert, are reported drinking from the same spring; and that 

 they figure pathetically in the same bag there can be no doubt. 



Owing to the more restricted variety of desert vegetation, the Gambel 

 Quail does not depend upon weed-seed to the same extent as its western 

 kinsmen. Although it eats seed and grain and wild fruit of almost every 

 available kind, two-thirds of its fare consists of browse, the tender leaves 

 and shoots of various plants, especially mesquite; and, in winter, buds 

 of mesquite and willow. Gardens are sampled on occasion, and some 

 damage to fruit is registered by early settlers, who are apt to be a little 

 over-sensitive as to their rights. Mistletoe berries are eagerly devoured 

 by these birds, and for this fare the lowly quail will invade the tops of 

 the highest mesquite trees. Here they meet the Shining Flycatcher 

 (Phainopepla nitens), the petulant, the dandified, the imperious; though 

 I never saw them yielding before the reproaches of this perturbed fop, 

 nor yet of his more spiteful mate. 



No. 315 



Dusky Grouse 



No. 315a Sooty Grouse 



A. O. U. No. 297a. Dendragapus obscurus fuliginosus (Ridgway). 



Synonyms. — Blue Grouse. Mountain Grouse. Hooter. 



Description. — Adult male: General plumage sooty slate, color deepest, nearly 

 or quite black, on upper back and in ring about throat, lighter, slaty, on breast and 

 belly, feathers mottled with buffy and tawny on wings, back, and sides, with ashy 

 (lightly) on rump and upper tail-coverts, and with large admixture of white on lower 

 belly and under tail-coverts; throat heavily flecked with white; shoulder-patches of 



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