256 
RUFFED GROUSE. 
allowed to remain undrawn for several days, until the contents 
of the crop and stomach have had time to diffuse themselves 
through the flesh, as is too often the case, it may be unwhole- 
some, and even dangerous. Great numbers of these birds are 
brought to our markets, at all times, during fall and winter ; 
some of which are brought from a distance of more than a 
hundred miles, and have been probably dead a week or two, 
unpicked and undrawn, before they are purchased for the table. 
Regulations, prohibiting them from being brought to market 
unless picked and drawn, would, very probably, be a sufficient 
security from all danger. At these inclement seasons, however, 
they are generally lean and dry ; and, indeed, at all times 
their flesh is far inferior to that of the Pinnated Grouse. They 
are usually sold, in Philadelphia market, at from three quarters 
of a dollar to a dollar and a quarter a-pair, and sometimes higher. 
The Pheasant, or Partridge, of New England, is eighteen 
inches long, and twenty-three inches in extent ; bill, a horn 
colour, paler below ; eye, reddish hazel, immediately above 
which is a small spot of bare skin, of a scarlet colour ; crested ; 
head and neck, variegated with black, red brown, white, and 
pale brown ; sides of the neck, furnished with a tuft of large 
black feathers, twenty-nine or thirty in number, which it 
occasionally raises ; this tuft covers a large space of the neck 
destitute of feathers ; body above, a bright rust colour, marked 
with oval spots of yellowish white, and sprinkled with black ; 
wings, plain olive brown, exteriorly edged with white, spotted 
with olive ; the tail is rounding, extends five inches beyond 
the tips of the wings, is of a bright reddish brown, beautifully 
marked with numerous waving transverse bars of black, is also 
crossed by a broad band of black, within half an inch of the 
tip, which is bluish white, thickly sprinkled and specked with 
black ; body below, white, marked with large blotches of pale 
brown ; the legs are covered half way to the feet with hairy 
down of a brownish white colour ; legs and feet, pale ash ; 
toes, pectinated along the sides ; the two exterior ones joined 
at the base, as far as the first joint, by a membrane ; vent, 
yellowish rust colour. 
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