150 
GALLIFORMES 
for terrestial life they perch readily in trees and often feed and roost there. Bills short, 
horny, and with strongly arched cuhnen (Figure 219); nostrils set in a soft feathered or 
bare 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. The 
/f\ # body plumage has pronounced aftershafts, small plumes growing 
'K Jj from the base of the main feather (Figure 220). 
sj v . Nesting. On the ground, eggs laid on the dead grass or leaves 
with little or no preparation. 
Distribution. Species of this suborder are found in all parts of 
Canada. The Ruffed and Spruce Grouse and the Turkey are birds 
Figure 220 °f the woodlands; the Bob-white, Prairie Chicken, and Sharp- 
Body feathers of Grouse tailed Grouse inhabit open, prairie, or brushy country; and the 
showing aftershaft. Ptarmigan the barren lands of the extreme north. 
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 number, 
and should lie 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 lie 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. Other animals are eaten 
on occasion and even commonly, but rabbits are the staple food supply. 
When rabbits are plentiful, all the wilderness life waxes fat and numerous; 
the small mice, moles, anti 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 period- 
ically, owing to a little understood recurrent epidemic, starvation faces 
the greatly augmented forces of the rabbit-eaters that lately found life 
so comfortable and increase so easy. The numbers must be adjusted to a 
reduced food supply and thousands die by starvation and attendant evils, 
but not until every possible source of food supply is exhausted. Fat 
hunters grow lean and turn their attention to game and to hunting methods 
that in times of plenty are regarded with indifference, and everything of 
food value suffers accordingly. Competition becomes keen; raptores 
