42 GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. 
The dusky grouse cock is quite uniformly dark in color, as the 
name implies. In the matin<r season the hird })resents a striking- 
appearance. The brilliant comhlike wattles above its eyes are con- 
spicuous, the lar<j:e, yellow wind sacs on the sides of its neck are fully 
inflated, and it struts about like a turkey cock, with droopin*; wings 
and spreading tail, emitting a sound that closely resembles the hoot- 
ing of the great horned owl. The nesting takes place during the last 
half of May, when the hen bird scratches a slight hollow in the earth 
and lays from () to 12 cream-colored, brown-spotted eggs. Usually 
but one brood is reared in a season. Prof. W. W. Cooke, in writing of 
the habits of the species in Colorado, says that it breeds from 7,000 
feet altitude to timber line, 4,000 feet higher. At the former altitude 
it lays about the middle of May. In August the birds gather in 
flocks and visit grainfields, or frequent the more open gulches and 
foothills for berries. In September they wander above timber line 
to feed on grasshoppers, reaching an altitude of 12,500 feet. In 
severe winter weather some of the birds come down into the thick 
woods, but many remain the whole year close to timber line.« 
FOOD HABITS. 
The food habits of the dusky grouse have been studied by examina- 
tion of the contents of 45 crops and stomachs, representing every 
month of the year except May, June, and Xovember. Most of the 
birds w^ere shot in British Columbia, Colorado, and Idaho, but a few 
came from Montana, Utah, Wyoming, and California. The food 
consisted of 6.73 percent anim.^1 matter — insects, w4th an occasional 
spider — and 93.27 percent of vegetable matter — seeds, fruit, and 
leaves. Grasshoppers constitute the bulk of the animal food, amount- 
ing to 5.73 percent. Beetles, ants, i:nd caterpillars form the rest of 
the insect food. One stomach contained the common land snail 
(Polygyra sp.). Major Bendire, Vernon Bailey, and Walter K. 
Fisher have shown that the young birds feed largely on grasshoppers. 
Mr. Fisher shot a young bird at Forest Grove, Oreg., July 6, 1897, 
which had eaten 20 grasshoppers and several smooth, green larvae. 
Vegetable Food. 
The dusky grouse and its near relative, the spruce grouse, are 
anumg our chief foliage-eating birds. Browse is eaten by the blue 
grouse to the extent of CxS.ll) i)ercent of its annual food, and is dis- 
tributed as follows: Buds and twigs, 5.28 percent; coniferous foliage, 
54.02 percent; other leaves, 8.89 percent. The species spends most of 
" liinls of Colorndo, \). 70, 1S1)7. 
