116 PINNATED GROUS. 



abounded with Grous. The timber growing up, in progress of 

 years, these birds totally disappeared; and for a long period of 

 time he had seen none of them ; until migrating with his family to 

 Kentucky^ on entering the barrens he one morning recognized the 

 well known music of his old acquaintance the Grous ; which he 

 assures me are the very same with those he had known in Penn- 

 sylvania. 



But what appears to me the most remarkable circumstance 

 relative to this bird is, that not one of all those writers who have 

 attempted its history have taken the least notice of those two ex- 

 traordinary bags of yellow skin which mark the neck of the male, 

 and which constitute so striking a peculiarity. These appear to 

 be formed by an expansion of the gullet as well as of the exterior 

 skin of the neck, which, when the bird is at rest, hangs in loose 

 pendulous wrinkled folds, along the side of the neck, the supple- 

 mental wings, at the same time, as well as when the bird is flying, 

 lying along the neck in the manner represented in one of the dis- 

 tant figures on the plate. But when these bags are inflated with 

 air, in breeding time, they are equal in size and very much re- 

 semble in color a middle sized fully ripe orange. By means of this 

 curious apparatus, which is very observable several hundred yards 

 off, he is enabled to produce the extraordinary sound mentioned 

 above, which, tho it may easily be imitated, is yet difficult to de- 

 scribe by words. It consists of three notes, of the same tone, resem- 

 bling those produced by the Night Hawks in their rapid descent ; 

 each strongly accented, the last being twice as long as the others. 

 When several are thus engaged the ear is unable to distinguish the 

 regularity of these triple notes, there being at such times one con- 

 tinued bumming, which is disagreeable and perplexing, from the 

 impossibility of ascertaining from what distance or even quarter it 

 proceeds. While uttering this the bird exhibits all the ostentatious 

 gesticulations of a turkey-cock; erecting and fluttering his neck 

 wings, wheeling and passing before the female and close before his 



