GROUSE, PTARMIGANS, ETC.: SAGE GROUSE 
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tall bushes. When the weather is cold and the snow deep and soft 
they often roost under the snow like the ruffed grouse, and come out in 
the morning fifteen or twenty feet from where they entered the white 
surface at night. In spring the males have a loud cackling note, 
besides a scraping sound produced apparently by opening and closing 
their rigid tail feathers” (1902, p. 132). 
Like the Prairie Hen the Sharp-tailed Grouse has an interesting 
nuptial dance. 
SAGE GROUSE: Centrocercus urophasianus (Bonaparte) 
Description. — Male: Length about 26-30 inches, wing 12-13, tail 11-13. 
Weight ±14 to 8 pounds. Female: Length 21.5-23 inches, wing about 10.5-11, tail 
8-9. Legs feathered to toes; tail long , graduated , and spiked. Adult male in breed¬ 
ing plumage: Upperparts mottled grayish, shoulders with black wiry plumes and 
white downy feathers; neck with distensible yellow air-sacs surmounted by erect 
feathers; chest band blackish with black wiry feathers depending from it (worn off 
by rubbing on the ground during the breeding season); bill black and toes blackish. 
Adult female: Like male but smaller and without ruffs, air-sacs, or nuptial plumes; 
upperparts grayish, throat white, chest speckled, belly brownish black. Young: 
Like adult female but brown and buffy prevailing on upperparts and breast, black 
belly feathers largely tipped with white, tail beginning to show its especial form. 
Range. —Sagebrush plains of Transition Zone from southern British Columbia, 
southern Saskatchewan, and western North Dakota south to northwestern Nebraska, 
north-central New Mexico, and eastern California. 
State Records. —In the sagebrush tract northeast of Tres Piedras, especially 
on the sage ridges 6 or 7 miles northeast, Ligon has been informed by a hunter, 
William Lilly, that Sage Grouse were formerly common, many of them having 
been killed by his family. They were rather common as late as 1908 near Tres 
Piedras. As great numbers of sheep arc wintered in the region, Ligon thinks that 
sheep herders and wood haulers are probably responsible for their extermination. 
The only specimen on record proving the occurrence of the Sage Hen in New Mexico 
is that of a single one taken in September, 1874, by C. E. Aiken near Tierra Amarilla. 
This was undoubtedly one of an isolated colony as it is the most southern record 
for the species, which does not occur to the east nor in the San Luis Valley to the 
north, while more than 100 miles separates Tierra Amarillo from the district in 
southwestern Colorado near Cortez where it occurs regularly.—W. W. Cooke. 
Nest. —A hollow scratched in the ground, generally under sagebrush. Eggs: 
Usually 7 to 9, rarely up to 17, grayish or greenish drab, lightly or thickly dotted 
and spotted with reddish brown. 
Food. —Mainly sagebrush leaves, flowers and buds, but also soft parts of other 
plants, and in spring and summer grasshoppers, ants, and other insects. Many 
examined contained only grasshoppers and sagebrush leaves. The young are 
more insectivorous. 
General Habits. —The Sage Hen as it is familiarly known, is the 
largest of the grouse and one of the most notable of them all. It has the 
most highly developed sexual characters—a combination of air-sacs, 
plumes, and ruffs that are displayed in courtship performances as unique 
if not so spectacular as those of the Prairie Hen. These courtship per- 
