SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 21 
light colored and dclicMoiisly llinorcd. Al'lcr the l)irds hcirin to pack 
they aft'ord little sport to the hunter. 
The sharp-tailed grouse are i)artly migratory. In winter they 
take refuge in the highest trees, walking among the l)ran('hes almost 
as nimbly as the ruti'ed grouse. Like the latter, the present species 
has a habit of plunging into the snow to spend the wintry night. 
It has many natural enemies in the winter, and in sunnner the golden 
eagle has been known to feed its young very largely upon its flesh. 
Its struggle for existence is unusually severe. Wherever it abounds, 
in accessible districts, it is pursued relentlessly by the sportsman; but 
where diminished to a certain point, as on its western and northern 
ranges, hunting it is largely abandoned. Probably some decades 
will pass, therefore, before it will be in danger of total extinction. 
As it does not readily accept civilization, it is not likely to become a 
popular bird in our growing game preserves, which each year becoine 
of greater economic importance. 
FOOD iiAiirrs. 
The food habits of the sharp-tailed grouse have been studied in 
connection with the present paper by the examination of 48 stomachs. 
These were collected in every month of the 3'ear except January and 
March; most of them in Nebraska and the Northwest Territories, but 
some in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Manitoba. The investigations 
showed that animal matter (insects) formed only 10.19 per cent of 
the food, while vegetable matter (seeds, fruit, and ' browse ') made 
89.81 percent. If subsequent study proves that these figures apply 
generally to the species, the sharp-tailed grouse is to be classed among 
the birds most largely vegetarian. 
INSECT FOOD. 
The insect matter consists of bugs, 0.50 percent; grasshoppers, 
4.G'2 percent; beetles, '2.8() percent, and miscellaneous insects, 2.*21 
percent in a total of 10.19 percent of the food. Vernon Bailey, of 
the Biological Survey, found that three birds shot by him in Idaho 
August 29 had eaten chiefly insects, including grassh()pi)ers, small 
l>ugs, and small caterpillars. Baird, Brewer, and Kidgway state 
that the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse has been known to feed on 
cateri)illars and other insects that have been scorched by prairie 
fires." 
The young of the sharp-tailed grouse, like those of other gallina- 
ceous species, are highly insectivorous. A downy chick from 1 to 8 
days old, collected on June 27, in Manitoba, by Ernest Thompson 
Seton, had eaten 95 percent of insects and 5 percent of wild straw- 
ollist. N. A. Birds, Land Birds. III. p. 4:iO, 1874. 
