PINNATED GROUS. 115 



state of Tennesee, a person living within a few miles of Nash- 

 ville had caught an old hen Groiis in a trap; and being obliged 

 to keep her in a large cage, as she struck and abused the rest of 

 the poultry, he remarked that she never drank; and that she even 

 avoided that quarter of the cage where the cup containing the water 

 was placed. Happening one day to let some water fall on the cage, 

 it trickled down in drops along the bars, which the bird no sooner 

 observed, than she eagerly picked them off, drop by drop, with a 

 dexterity that shewed she had been habituated to this mode of 

 quenching her thirst; and probably to this mode only, in those 

 dry and barren tracts, where, except the drops of dew and drops 

 of rain, water is very rarely to be met with. For the space of a 

 week he watched her closely to discover whether she still refused 

 to drink; but, tho she was constantly fed on Indian corn, the cup 

 and water still remained untouched and untasted. Yet no sooner 

 did he again sprinkle water on the bars of the cage, than she eager- 

 ly and rapidly picked them off as before. 



The last, and probably the strongest inducement to their 

 preferring these plains, is the small acorn of the shrub-oak; the 

 strawberries, buckle berries, and partridge berries with which they 

 abound, and which constitute the principal part of the food of these 

 birds. These brushy thickets also afford them excellent shelter, 

 being almost impenetrable to dogs or birds of prey. 



In all these places where they inhabit they are, in the strictest 

 sense of the word, resident; having their particular haunts, and 

 places of rendezvous, (as described in the preceding account,) to 

 which they are strongly attached. Yet they have been known to 

 abandon an entire tract of such country, when, from whatever cause 

 it might proceed, it became again covered with forest. A few miles 

 south of the town of York, in Pennsylvania, commences an extent 

 of country, formerly of the character described, now chiefly cover- 

 ed with wood ; but still retaining the name of barrens. In the re- 

 collection of an old man born in that part of the country, this tract 



