GROUSE AND PTARMIGAN. 
403 
Other Genera. 
ancl mottled with black; while the throat, chest, and middle of the breast are 
black, the sides and under-parts being tipped with white, and the tail black tipped 
with chestnut. The female has the general plumage barred and mottled with 
black and rufous yellow. In both the male and female of Franklin’s grouse this 
chestnut band across the end of the tail is absent, and the upper tail-coverts are 
tipped with white instead of grey. 
The sharp-winged grouse ( Falcipennis ) of North-Eastern 
Siberia and Kamschatka may be recognised by having the outer 
flight-feathers narrowed towards the extremity and sickle-shaped. The dusky 
grouse {Dendragapvbs obscurus ) and its two allies, of the pine-forests to the east 
and west of the Rocky Mountains, have the tail with twenty feathers, and the 
males are provided with an inflatable air-sac on each side of the neck. The home 
of the dusky grouse is the southern Rocky Mountains, from New Mexico to Idaho, 
its place further west being taken by the sooty grouse (D. fuliginosus), ranging 
along the Pacific Coast from California to Sitka; while, on the east side of the 
Rockies, Richardson’s grouse (D. richardsoni ) is found from Central Montana 
northwards. Much larger than the Canadian grouse, the males of this species 
have the upper-parts smoky black, mottled with grey, and the under-parts grey ; 
while in the females the plumage of the upper-parts and breast is barred and 
mottled with buff. In both the dusky and sooty grouse the tail is somewhat 
rounded in shape, with a terminal grey band wider (more than an inch wide) 
in the former. In Richardson’s grouse the grey band is absent and the tail 
square. 
The males of the three species of prairie-hen are characterised 
by an elongate tuft of feathers, and an inflatable air-sac on each side 
of the neck, but in the females these tufts are less conspicuous and the air-sacs 
absent. The common prairie-hen of the Mississippi Valley ( Tympanuchus ameri- 
■canus), shown in the woodcut on p. 404, has the plumage brown above, barred 
and marked with buff and black, the longer feathers of the neck-tufts being black, 
and the under-parts pale brown, barred and fringed with white. During the 
pairing-season these birds assemble in numbers in the morning on some high 
dry knoll, when the males go through strange antics to captivate the females. 
Inflating their orange air-sacs and erecting their long neck-tufts, they utter their 
strange, booming love-note, which may be heard at a great distance in the still 
morning air. The females are remarkably prolific, laying eleven to fourteen eggs 
on an average, while as many as twenty or more are not unfrequently found. The 
females alone undertake the incubation and care of their young, the males separat¬ 
ing from them as soon as all the eggs are laid. 
The largest American representative of the family is the sage- 
grouse ( Centrocercns urophasiamis), inhabiting the dry sage-brush 
plains of the western United States. Distinguished from the allied forms by its 
long pheasant-like tail of twenty feathers, with the middle pair elongate and 
pointed, the male has an inflatable air-sac on each side of the neck, and attains a 
weight of 8 lbs., the female being smaller. The chief food of this bird, especially 
•during the winter months, is the sage-brush, though during summer it is varied 
with grasses, berries, insects, and sometimes grain. The stomach of this species 
Prairie-Hens. 
Sage-Grouse. 
