DUSKY GROUS. 
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the Tetrao cupido, frequenting plains where grow trees of various 
kinds. The Lagopodes of the Arctic regions, or Ptarmigans, are 
also found on the very elevated mountains of central Europe, 
where the temperature corresponds to that of more northern 
latitudes. Here they keep among the tufts of dwarf willows, 
which with pines, form the principal vegetation of these climates. 
The Grouse feed almost exclusively on leaves, buds, berries, and 
especially the young shoots of trees, pines spruce or birch, 
resorting to seeds only when compelled by scarcity of other 
food, or when their usual means of subsistence are buried 
beneath the snow. They sometimes, especially when young, 
pick up a few insects and worms, and are fond of ants’ eggs. 
♦ 
Like other gallinaceous birds, they are constantly employed in 
scratching the earth, are fond of covering themselves with dust, 
and swallow small pebbles and gravel to assist digestion. No 
birds are more decidedly and tyrannically polygamous. As soon 
as the females are fecundated, the male deserts them, caring 
no further about them nor their progeny, to lead a solitary life. 
Like perfidious seducers, they are full of attentions however, and 
display the greatest anxiety to secure the possession of those 
they are afterwards so ready to abandon. The nuptial season 
commences when the leaves first appear in spring. The males 
then appear quite intoxicated with passion: they are seen, either 
on the ground, or on the fallen trunks of trees, with a proud 
deportment, an inflamed and fiery eye, the feathers of the head 
erected, the wings dropped, the tail widely spread—parading and 
strutting about in all sorts of extravagant attitudes, and expressing 
their feelings by sounds so loud as to be heard at a great distance. 
This season of ardour and abandonment is protracted till June. 
The deserted female lays, unnoticed by the male, far apart on 
the ground among low and thick bushes, from eight to sixteen 
eggs, breeding but once in a season. They sit and rear their 
