PIN MAT ED GROUSE. 



397 



When he utters it, the parts about the throat are sensibly- 

 inflated and swelled. It may be heard on a still morning for 

 three or more miles ; some say they have perceived it as far 

 as five or six. This noise is a sort of ventriloquism. It does 

 not strike the ear of a bystander with much force, but im- 

 presses him with the idea, though produced within a few rods 

 of him, of a voice a mile or two distant. This note is highly 

 characteristic. Though very peculiar, it is termed tooting, 

 from its resemblance to the blowing of a conch or horn 

 from a remote quarter. The female makes the nest on the 

 ground, in recesses very rarely discovered by men. She 

 usually lays from ten to twelve eggs. Their colour is of a 

 brownish, much resembling those of a guinea hen. When 

 hatched, the brood is protected by her alone. Surrounded by 

 her young, the mother bird exceedingly resembles a domestic 

 hen and chickens. She frequently leads them to feed in the 

 roads crossing the woods, on the remains of maize and oats 

 contained in the dung dropped by the travelling horses. In 

 that employment they are often surprised by the passengers. 

 On such occasions the dam utters a cry of alarm. The little 

 ones immediately scamper to the brush ; and while they are 

 skulking into places of safety, their anxious parent beguiles 

 the spectator by drooping and fluttering her wings, limping 

 along the path, rolling over in the dirt, and other pretences of 

 inability to walk or fly. 



" Food. — A favourite article of their diet is the heath-hen 

 plum, or partridgeberry before mentioned. They are fond of 

 hurtleberries and craneberries. Worms and insects of several 

 kinds are occasionally found in their crops. But, in the 

 winter, they subsist chiefly on acorns, and the buds of trees 

 which have shed their leaves. In their stomachs have been 

 sometimes observed the leaves of a plant supposed to be a 

 winter green ; and it is said, when they are much pinched, 

 they betake themselves to the buds of the pine. In convenient 

 places, they have been known to enter cleared fields, and 

 regale themselves on the leaves of clover ; and old gunners 



