100 
THE PINNATED GROUSE. 
Unlike other species, they seldom pass over you, even when you surprise 
them, and if the country is wooded, they frequently alight on the highest 
branches of the tallest trees, where they are usually more accessible. If shot 
almost dead, they fall and turn round on the ground with great violence until 
life is extinct ; but when less injured, they run with great celefity to some 
secluded place, where they remain so quiet and silent as to render it difficult 
to find them without a good dog. Their flesh is dark, and resembles that 
of the Red Grouse of Scotland, or the Spotted Grouse of North America. 
The curious notes emitted in the love season are peculiar to the male. 
When the receptacles of air, which in form, colour, and size, resemble a 
small orange, are perfectly inflated, the bird lowers its head to the ground, 
opens its bill, and sends forth, as it were, the air contained in these bladders 
in distinctly separated notes, rolling one after another from loud to low, and 
producing a sound like that of a large muffled drum. This done, the bird 
immediately erects itself, refils its receptacles by inhalation, aud again 
proceeds with its tootings. I frequently observed in those Prairie Hens 
which I had tamed at Henderson, that after producing the noise, the bags 
lost their rotundity, and assumed the appearance of a burst bladder, but that 
in a few seconds they were again inflated. Having caught one of the birds, 
I passed the point of a pin through each of its air-cells, the consequence of 
which was, that it was unable to toot any more. With another bird I per- 
formed the same operation on one only of the cells, and next morning it 
tooted with the sound one, although not so loudly as before, but could not 
inflate the one which had been punctured. The sound, in my opinion, 
cannot be heard at a much greater distance than a mile. All my endeavours 
to decoy this species, by imitating its curious sounds, were unsuccessful, 
although the Ruffed Grouse is easily deceived in this manner. As soon as 
the strutting and fighting are over, the collapsed bladders are concealed by 
the feathers of the ruff, and during autumn and winter are much reduced in 
size. These birds, indeed, seldom, if ever, meet in groups on the scratching 
grounds after incubation has taken place ; at all events, I have never seen 
them fight after that period, for, like the Wild Turkeys, after spending a 
few weeks apart to recover their strength, they gradually unite, and as soon 
as the young are grown up, individuals of both sexes mix with the latter 
and continue in company till spring. The young males exhibit the bladders 
and elongated feathers of the neck before the first winter, and by the next 
spring have attained maturity, although, as in many other species, they 
increase in size and beauty for several years. 
As I have never shot these birds in the Eastern States, and therefore 
cannot speak from experience of the sport which they afford, I here intro- 
duce a very interesting letter from a well known sportsman, my friend 
