2t;8 RUFFED GROUSE. 



unpicked and undrawn, before they are purchased for the table. 

 Kegulations prohibiting them from being brought to market 

 unless picked and drawn would very probably be a sufficient 

 security from all danger. At these inclement seasons, however, 

 they are generally lean and dry ; and, indeed, at all times 

 their flesh is far inferior to that of the pinnated grouse. They 

 are usually sold in Philadelphia market at from three-quarters 

 of a dollar to a dollar and a quarter a pair, and sometimes 

 higher. 



The pheasant, or partridge, of New England, is eighteen 

 inches long, and twenty-three inches in extent ; bill, a horn 

 colour, paler below ; eye, reddish hazel, immediately above 

 which is a small spot of bare skin of a scarlet colour ; crested ; 

 head and neck, variegated with black, red brown, white, and 

 pale brown ; sides of the neck furnished with a tuft of large 

 black feathers, twenty-nine or thirty in number, which it 

 occasionally raises ; this tuft covers a large space of the neck 

 destitute of feathers ; body above, a bright rust colour, marked 

 with oval spots of yellowish white, and sprinkled with black ; 

 wings, plain olive brown, exteriorly edged with white, spotted 

 with olive ; the tail is rounded, extends five inches beyond 

 the tips of the wings, is of a bright reddish brown, beautifully 

 marked with numerous waving transverse bars of black, is also 

 crossed by a broad band of black, within half an inch of the 

 tip, which is bluish white, thickly sprinkled and specked with 

 black ; body below, white, marked with large blotches of pale 

 brown ; the legs are covered half way to the feet with hairy 

 down of a brownish white colour ; legs and feet, pale ash ; 

 toes, pectinated along the sides ; the two exterior ones joined 

 at the base, as far as the first joint, by a membrane ; vent, 

 yellowish rust colour. 



The female and young birds differ in having the ruff or 

 tufts of feathers on the neck of a dark brown colour, as well 

 as the bar of black on the tail inclining much to the same 

 tint. 



