2{J GROUSE AND WILD TURKEYS OF UNITED STATES. 
15 to 20, but, according to the people of that section, the prairie hens 
^rather in flocks of hundreds in the late fall. At this season they are 
destructive to unthreshed wheat and oats, tearin<r oil* the surface of 
the stacks. In winter they visit cattle pens and corrals in search of 
food. During severe winters they are sometimes so numerous that 
they become a nuisance. Some idea may be had of their abundance 
during winter from the information secured by Oberholser that one 
man shipped 20,000 of them from this section in a single season. 
THE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 
( J*c(l iacctc-s />// (/ .s- id ii cUus. ) « 
The sharp-tailed grouse is about the same size and has the general 
appearance of the i)rairie hen. Its range is wide, extending from 
Lake ^Michigan to northeastern California, and from northeastern 
New Mexico to Alaska. In the northern part of the Mississippi 
Valley its range overlaps that of the prairie hen. and mixed flocks are 
sometimes seen, but the ' spike tail ' is seldom found in such large num- 
bers as that species. It shows also nnu'h less ada})t ability to changed 
conditions and disappears more rapidly after the subjection of its 
range to agriculture. In regard to its curious courtship, Professor 
Macoun writes of the Columbian sharp-tailed grouse: ^ 
The males collect in large nuinbers on some hill about the end of Ajn-il or 
beginning of May to have their annual dance, which they keep up for a month or 
six weeks. It is almost impossible to drive them away from one of their hills 
when they are dancing. One day about the middle of May, I shot into a dancing 
party, killing two, and w(mnding another, which flew a short distance. I went 
to get it, and before I got back to pick up the dead birds, the others were bacl^ 
dancing. a round them. 
About a dozen eggs generally make n clutch, and but one brood is 
reared in a season. The eggs vary from buff to olive-brown and arc 
usually lightly spotted with brown. 
From two to three months after hatching, the young are full grown 
and afford quite as good if not better sport than the prairie hen. 
They lie well to the dog and usually rise with a noisy, clucking cry; 
after a short distance the flight changes to an alternation of ra})id 
\ibi-ati()ns of the wings and gliding or sailing on stillly outspread 
pinions. The flesh of the young, like that of yoiuig prairie hens, is 
"The shari)-tMiIed grouse varies in different i)arts of its range, and has been 
divided into two geographic forms in addition to the typical bird. These are the 
Columbian sharp-tailed grouse (I'cdiaccfcs itltdsiancllus ro//n;/?>m>/»/.s'). occupying 
the western part of the bird's range in the United States, and tlie prairi(^ shari)- 
tailed grouse (PeUicccctcs phasiancllus c(nn]K'.sfiiK) which covers the plains east 
of the liocky Mountains. 
J* Cat. Can. Birds, pt. 1, p. LM2, 10(X). 
I 
