236 grous. 



Raffed Grous; the tail ash-colour, crossed with dusky bars, and 

 mottled with the same, between each bar, with a broad band of 

 chestnut brown instead of black. Dr. Forster, in Phil. Trans. 

 mentions one, supposed a young bird, or female, which wanted the 

 black shoulder-knot, otherwise answered the description. The tails, 

 however, in both sexes, when at full age, are exactly similar. 



Inhabits various parts of North America, but no where more 

 plentiful than in the southern parts of Hudson's Bay, where it is 

 called Puskee and Pepuskee; found also in Pennsylvania, New York, 

 and Nova Scotia, the Carol inas, and probably as far as Louisiana, 



In manners this species seems to coincide with the Wood Grous, 

 and Black Cock; the male placing himself on some stump of a tree, 

 and flapping his wings for the space of a minute; he repeats the 

 same at seven or eight minutes interval, for several times, elevating 

 the crest of the head, and the neck feathers all together, in the atti- 

 tude which Edwards has happily imitated. This he repeats morning 

 and evening, and the signal is attended to by the females. During 

 this ecstacy, he is blind to the approach of a sportsman, who may 

 take aim at leisure, directed to the bird by the noise, which may be 

 heard a mile off. The male repeats this flapping in autumn.* They 

 stay at Hudson's Bay the whole year, and make the nest on the 

 ground early in May, among the leaves; will often lay as many as 

 sixteen eggs, of a brownish white, but rarely have fewer than nine 

 young at a hatch, to which the the mother clucks, and broods them 

 on occasion, like the Common Hen, and they follow her like 

 chickens. Both old and young keep together till nature prompts 

 the latter to provide for an offspring of their own. In winter they 

 feed on birch buds, juniper tops, and ivy berries, for the most part; 



* General Davies informed me, that the male does this at other times, as well as in the 

 breeding season ; and that he begins the flapping at first very slow, increasing by degrees, 

 till he arrives at a stupendous velocity; after which he ceases, and crows like our Cock 

 Pheasant; after an interval begins again. This action is only at sun-set ; and the bird is 

 observed to do the same when kept tame in the house. 



