50 
SPOTTED GROUS. 
Grouse, they build on the ground, laying perhaps fewer eggs: 
these are varied with white, yellow, and black. They are easily 
approached, being unsuspicious, and by no means so shy as the 
common Ruffed Grous, and are killed or trapped in numbers 
without much artifice being necessary for this purpose. When 
much disturbed, like their kindred species they are apt to resort 
to trees, where, by using the precaution of always shooting the 
lowest, the whole of the terrified flock may be brought down to 
the last bird. 
The Spotted Grous is smaller than the common Partridge or 
Pheasant, being but fifteen inches in length. The bill is black, 
seven-eighths of an inch long. The general colour of the plumage 
is made up of black and gray mingled in transverse wavy crescents, 
with a few of grayish rufous on the neck. The small feathers 
covering the nostrils are deep velvetty black. The feathers 
may all be called black as to the ground colour, and blackish 
plumbeous at the base; on the crown, upper sides of the head 
above the eye, and the anterior portion of the neck, they have each 
two gray bands or small crescents, and tipped with a third; these 
parts, owing to the gray margin of the feathers being very broad, 
appear nearly all gray. These longer feathers of the lower part 
of the neck above, and between the shoulders, are more broadly 
and deeply black, each with a reddish band, and gray only at tip; 
the lowest have even two reddish bands, which pass gradually 
into grayish; a few of the lateral feathers of the neck are almost 
pure white, all the remaining feathers of the upper parts of the 
body have two grayish bands, besides a slight tip of the same 
colour, some of the lowest and longest having even three of these 
bands besides the tip. The very long upper tail-coverts are well 
distinguished, not only by their shape, but also by their colours, 
being black brown, thickly sprinkled on the margins with grayish 
rusty, and a pretty well defined band of that colour towards the 
