PINNATED GROUS. 
37 
house; are sometimes seen sitting on the fences in dozens; mix 
with the poultry, and glean up the scattered grains of Indian 
corn; seeming almost half domesticated. At such times great 
numbers are taken in traps. No pains, however, or regular plan 
has -ever:. been persisted in, as far as I was informed to domes- 
ticate these delicious birds. A Mr. Reed, who lives between 
the Pilot Knobs and Bairdstown, told me, that a few years ago, 
one of his sons found a Grous’s nest, with fifteen eggs, which 
he brought home, and immediately placed below a hen then 
sitting; taking away her own. The nest of the Grous was on the 
ground, under a tussock of long grass, formed with very little 
art and few materials; the eggs were brownish white, and about 
the size of a pullet’s. In three or four days the whole were 
hatched. Instead of following the hen, they compelled her to 
run after them, distracting her with the extent and diversity 
of their wanderings; and it was a day or two before they seemed 
10 understand her language, or consent to be guided by her. 
They were let out to the fields, where they paid little regard to 
their nurse; and in a few days, only three of them remained. 
These became extremely tame and familiar, were most expert 
fly catchers; but soon after they also disappeared. 
The Pinnated Grous is nineteen inches long, twenty-seven 
inches in extent, and when in good order, weighs about three 
pounds and a half; the neck is furnished with supplemental 
wings, each composed of eighteen feathers, five of which are 
black, and about three inches long, the rest shorter, also black, 
streaked laterally with brown, and of unequal lengths; the head 
is slightly crested; over the eye is an elegant semicircular comb 
of rich orange, which the bird has the power of raising or re- 
laxing; under the neck wings are two loose pendulous and 
wrinkled skins, extending along the side of the neck for two- 
thirds of its length, each of which, when inflated with air, re- 
sembles, in bulk, colour and surface, a middle sized orange; 
chin cream-coloured; under the eye runs a dark streak of brown; 
whole upper parts mottled transversely with black, reddish 
brown and white; tail short, very much rounded, and of a plain 
