PINNATED GROUSE. 
397 
When he utters it, the parts about the throat are sensibly 
inflated and swelled. It may be heard on a still morning for 
three or more miles ; some say they have perceived it as far 
as five or six. This noise is a sort of ventriloquism. It does 
not strike the ear of a bystander with much force, but 
impresses him with the idea, though produced within a few 
rods of him, of a voice a mile or two distant. This note is 
highly characteristic. Though very peculiar, it is termed 
tooting , from its resemblance to the blowing of a conch or horn 
from a remote quarter. The female makes her nest on the 
ground, in recesses very rarely discovered by men. She 
usually lays from ten to twelve eggs. Their colour is of a 
brownish, much resembling those of a Guinea hen. When 
hatched, the brood is protected by her alone. Surrounded by 
her young, the mother bird exceedingly resembles a domestic 
hen and chickens. She frequently leads them to feed in the 
roads crossing the woods, on the remains of maize and oats 
contained in the dung dropped by the travelling horses. In 
that employment they are often surprised by the passengers. 
On such occasions the dam utters a cry of alarm. The little 
ones immediately scamper to the brush ; and while they are 
skulking into places of safety, their anxious parent beguiles 
the spectator by drooping and fluttering her wings, limping 
along the path, rolling over in the dirt, and other pretences of 
inability to walk or fly. 
“ Food. — A favourite article of their diet is the heath-hen 
plum , or partridgeberry before mentioned. They are fond of 
hurtleberries and craneberries. Worms and insects of several 
kinds are occasionally found in their crops. But, in the 
winter, they subsist chiefly on acorns, and the buds of trees 
which have shed their leaves. In their stomachs have been 
sometimes observed the leaves of a plant supposed to be a 
winter green ; and it is said, when they are much pinched, 
they betake themselves to the buds of the pine. In convenient 
places, they have been known to enter cleared fields, and 
regale themselves on the leaves of clover ; and old gunners 
