158 
SUBORDER— PHASIANI. TRUE FOWLS. PHEASANTS, QUAILS, GROUSE, 
AND PTARMIGAN 
General Description. This suborder is composed of birds with strong, compact feet, 
four toes, and blunt claws adapted for scratching the ground (Figure 28, page 27). 
Legs and feet heavily feathered to end of toes (Ptarmigan, Figure 193). Though best 
adapted for terrestrial life they perch readily in trees and often feed and roost there. 
Bills short, homy, and with strongly arched culmen (Figure 29, page 28); nostrils 
set in a soft intrusion into the base of the bill; wings short and round. These birds 
rarely take wing except for short flights or to avoid immediate danger. 
Nesting. On the ground, eggs laid on the dead grass or leaves with little or no pre- 
paration. 
Distribution. Species of this suborder are found in all parts of Canada. The Ruffed 
and Spruce Grouse and the Turkey are birds of the woodlands; the Bob-white, Prairie 
Chicken, and Shaip-tailed Grouse inhabit open or prairie country; and the Ptarmigan, 
the barren lands of the extreme north. 
Three families of this order are native to Canada. Odontophoridae 
the American Quail, Tetraonidae the Grouse, and Meleagridae the Turkeys. 
The Pheasants have been introduced in various places in the Dominion 
and have done well in British Columbia. 
Economic Status. Their food is both insect and vegetable — grains, 
buds, leaves, fruit, and insects being equally acceptable to them. As 
several species frequent cultivated fields their economic status is of interest 
to the husbandman and has been the subject of considerable investigation, 
the results of which show that some of them are among the most useful 
birds on the farm. The insect part of the food of some species is de- 
cidedly important and very little objection can be made to the other items, 
which are mostly waste or wild material of little or no consequence to the 
agriculturist. 
Like most of our larger birds they have been greatly reduced in num- 
ber, and should be strictly protected and the killing of them limited to the 
natural annual surplus, leaving an ample permanent breeding stock 
untouched. 
Most, if not all, members of the order in this country are subject 
to great fluctuation in number, and a gradual increase over a period of 
years followed by a sudden decrease is to be expected. The causes of this 
are various and complicated. A winter of unusually heavy snowfall that 
covers the food and fills the shelter coulees full of drifts will destroy much 
potential breeding stock. When a thaw or sleety weather is followed by a 
cold snap, it puts an impenetrable crust on the snow and prevents the 
getting of food or the burrowing for shelter. A long, cold, wet spring is 
disastrous to young birds, which are particularly susceptible to such con- 
ditions. 
The welfare of these birds is linked somewhat closely with that 
of the rabbits and hare, not only of their own locality, but of the 
far north. The rabbit is the mainstay of all the carnivora — weasel, fox, 
coyote, lynx, Goshawk, and Great Horned and Snowy Owls. They eat 
other animals on occasion and even commonly, but rabbits are their 
staple food supply. When rabbits are plentiful, all the wilderness life 
waxes fat and numerous; the small mice, moles, and birds that find 
their enemies engaged in more profitable hunting; the fur bearers that 
revel in an abundance of easily caught food, and the trappers, even the 
great fur companies themselves, reap a rich harvest. When rabbits 
diminish in numbers, as they do periodically, owing to a little understood 
