SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 201 
the middle of June,* they utter a piping- noise, some- 
what like chickens. Attempts have been repeatedly 
made to domesticate them, but have as constantly 
failed, all the young-, though carefully nursed by their 
stepmother, the common hen, dying one after another, 
probably for want of suitable food. This species has 
several cries : the cock has a shrill crowing note, rather 
feeble; and both sexes, when disturbed, or whilst on 
the wing, repeat frequently the cry of each , each. This 
well known sound conducts the hunter to their hiding 
place, and they are also detected, by producing with 
their small, lateral, rigid tail-feathers, a curious noise, 
resembling that made by a winnowing fan. When in 
good order, one of these grouse will weigh upwards of 
two pounds, being very plump. Their flesh is of a 
light brown colour, and very compact, though, at the 
same time, exceedingly juicy and well tasted, being far 
superior in this respect to the common ruffed, and 
approaching in excellence the delicious pinnated grouse. 
The adult male sharp-tailed grouse, in full plumage, is 
sixteen inches long, and twenty-three in breadth. The 
bill is little more than an inch long, blackish, pale at 
the base of the lower mandible, and with its ridge 
entering between the small feathers covering the 
nostrils : these are blackish, edged with pale rusty, the 
latter predominating ; the irides are hazel. The general 
colour of the bird is a mixture of white, and different 
shades of dark and light rusty, on a rather deep and 
glossy blackish ground, the feathers of the head and 
neck have but a single band of rusty, and are tipped 
with white; those, however, of the crown, are of a 
much deeper and more glossy black, with a single 
marginal spot of rusty on each side, and a very faint 
tip of the same, forming a tolerably pure black space on 
the top of the head. The feathers between the eye and 
bill, those around the eye, above and beneath, on the 
sides of the head, and on the throat, are somewhat of a 
dingy yellowish white, with a small black spot on each 
side, giving these parts a dotted appearance; but the 
dots fewer and smaller on the throat. The feathers of 
