The Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse 



At the foot of a maple in some swampy thicket, or close beside a 

 fallen log, the female scrapes a slight depression in the earth, lining it 

 roughly with dead leaves and a few small twigs. In this she places eight 

 or ten eggs, buff or faintly ruddy, sparingly spotted with pale brownish 

 or buffy red. As she leaves the nest, she does so a-wing, causing the sur- 

 rounding leaves to nutter carelessly over her eggs. If the eggs are mo- 

 lested, she will either desert outright or else break up the polluted clutch. 

 If, however, she only suspects that her secret may be known, she is at 

 great pains to cover up her treasures with leaves and trash each time she 

 quits them. 



A noisy surprise is in store for the person who comes upon a mother 

 partridge with a brood of tender chicks. With a great outcry the mother 

 bird charges up in front of the intruder, or dashes into his face; then 

 stands before him with flashing eyes and ruffled feathers, looking fierce 

 enough to eat him up. Thus she holds the enemy at bay for one bewilder- 

 ing moment, — a precious moment, in which her tiny darlings are finding 

 shelter. Then she collapses like a struck tent and vanishes in a trice. 

 A diligent search may discover a chick under a fallen leaf, or between two 

 pieces of bark, but no living man can find an entire brood in this way. 



At such times, also, the female, in concealment, utters a whining 

 sound or adds to it a vocal undertone, dznt dzut dznt dzut, which is not 

 unlike the chittering of a chipmunk or a chickadee. The youngsters 

 peep lustily, once the ban of silence has been removed, and if the bird- 

 watcher lingers quietly, he may hear the motherly clucking which re- 

 assembles the brood. 



The food of the Ruffed Grouse is, of course, chiefly vegetable. Ber- 

 ries of all kinds are freely eaten in season ; at other times buds and "browse" 

 form the staple diet, — huckleberry leaves, fern leaves, wild clover, and 

 the like. This grouse loves to frequent the little bottoms where deciduous 

 trees cover the stream-beds, and here in the fall of the year the birds may 

 scratch among the fallen leaves, and experience some of those autumnal 

 thrills which, in the sterner East, have given brown October and the 

 "partridge" an imperishable identity. 



No. 317 



Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse 



A. O. U. No. 308a. Pedioecetes phasianellus columbianus (Ord). 



Synonyms. — Common Sharp-tailed Grouse. Pin-tailed Grouse. "Prairie 

 Chicken." 



Description. — Adults: Above chiefly buffy gray or pale brownish finely varied 

 by irregular spots and bars of brownish black and lighter brownish; wing-coverts with 



1599 



