PINNATED GROUSE. 
403 
rain, water is very rarely to be met with. For the space of a 
week he watched her closely, to discover whether she still 
refused to drink ; but, though she was constantly fed on Indian 
corn, the cup and water still remained untouched and untasted. 
Yet no sooner did he again sprinkle water on the bars of the 
cage, than she eagerly and rapidly picked them off as before- 
The last, and, probably, the strongest inducement to their 
preferring these plains, is the small acorn of the shrub oak ; 
the strawberries, huckleberries, and partridgeberries, with 
which they abound, and which constitute the principal part of 
the food of these birds. These brushy thickets also afford 
them excellent shelter, being almost impenetrable to dogs or 
birds of prey. 
In all these places where they inhabit, they are, in the 
strictest sense of the word, resident; having their particular 
haunts, and places of rendezvous, (as described in the preceding 
account,) to which they are strongly attached. Yet they have 
been known to abandon an entire tract of such country, when, 
from whatever cause it might proceed, it became again covered 
with forest. A few miles south of the town of York, in 
Pennsylvania, commences an extent of country, formerly of 
the character described, now chiefly covered with wood, but 
still retaining the name of Barrens. In the recollection of an 
old man born in that part of the country, this tract abounded 
with Grouse. The timber growing up, in progress of years, 
these birds totally disappeared ; and, for a long period of 
time, he had seen none of them, until, migrating with his 
family to Kentucky, on entering the Barrens, he, one morning, 
recognized the well known music of his old acquaintance, the 
Grouse ; which, he assures me, are the very same with those 
he had known in Pennsylvania. 
But what appears to me the most remarkable circumstance 
relative to this bird, is, that not one of all those writers who 
have attempted its history, have taken the least notice of those 
two extraordinary bags of yellow skin which mark the neck of 
the male, and which constitute so striking a peculiarity. These 
appear to be formed by an expansion of the gullet, as well as 
