ground, but in a short time stretch out their necks to survey the intruder; and
if they are not scared by a nearer advance, soon resume their circular course,
some running to the right, others to the left, meeting and crossing each other.
These “ Partridge-dances ” last for a month or more, or until the hens begin
to hatch. When the Sharp-tailed Grouse are put up, they rise with the usual
whirring noise, and alight again, at the distance of a few hundred yards, either
on the ground, or on the upper branches of a tree. Before the cock quits his
perch, he utters repeatedly the cry of “ C u d , cu d , cu d .” In winter they roost
in the snow like the Willow Grouse, and they can make their way through the
loose wreaths with ease. They feed on the buds and sprouts of the Betula glandu-
losa, of various Willows, and of the aspen and larch ; and in autumn on berries.
Mr. Hutchins says that the hen lays thirteen white eggs, with coloured spots,
early in June ; the nest being placed on the ground, and formed of grass, lined with feathers.
DESCRIPTION
Of a male, killed at Great Slave Lake, November, 1826.
C olour.—Crest, forehead, a line from the rictus under the eye, ear feathers, and cheeks
blackish-brown, with pale edgings. " Hind head and back of the neck shortly barred with
brownish-white, yellowish-brown, and blackish-brown. Dorsal plumage, scapulars, tertiaries
and most of the wing coverts, yellowish-brown, approaching to ferruginous, broadly but irregularly
barred, and sparingly dotted with blackish-brown ; these dark bars having a peculiar
divergent, tricuspid form on the back and rump. Scapulars, tertiaries, and wing coverts
tipped with triangular white spots. The quills and the broad upper and anterior borders of
the wing clove-brown; the secondaries tipped with white, and crossed by three bars of the
same ; the greater quills having about eight white bars on their outer webs only. Tail white,
the shafts blackish-brown ; the middle pair of feathers much striped and barred with blackishbrown,
and a few blotches of the same on the two adjoining pairs. Under surface:__lores,
superciliary stripe, both eyelids, chin, and part of the throat, brownish-white. Front of the
neck white and ferruginous, barred with blackish-brown. Base of the neck beneath, the
breast, and shoulders, beautifully marked with white arrow-headed spots, bounded by dark
brown : the plumage fringed with white. Flanks coloured like the back, but with more white.
Rest of the under plumage, inner wing coverts, and axillaries, pure white; the fore part of
the belly marked with concealed dark brown lanceolate stripes. Tarsal feathers pale soiled
brown. Bill umber-brown ; pale horn-colour beneath. Fringed superciliary comb bright
red. Toes bluish-grey. Nails dark.—Females killed on the Saskatchewan differ in the
ground colour of the middle tail feathers being brownish-orange, and the forehead and crest
barred with the same; the ferruginous tint of the plumage brighter and more general, and
the arrow-headed marks on the breast less acute, and not so handsome or well defined.
The crests are smaller and the superciliary combs scarcely visible.
F o rm .__Bill stronger than that of any of the preceding Grouse, except T. urophasianeUus:
margin of the upper mandible sinuated. Crest springing from the forehead and crown
rather pointed and narrow. Third quill the longest. Tail much graduated, consisting of
eighteen narrow, strap-shaped feathere, the central pair* an inch longer than the adjoining
ones and three inches longer than the outer ones. All the feathers, hut particularly the more
exterior ones, are worn in a peculiar manner on the edges, the truncated ends remaining
broader, rendering their outline somewhat fiddle-Shaped. Tarsi and webs at the base of
the toes feathered. Toes pectinated, with long, slender processes. Nails slightly curved,
tapering, acute.
Dimensions.
InMcha. leL. in. InFcehm. aLlein. . • Inch. Lin. InFcehm. aLlein. .
ngth, total
,, of tail .
20 0 16 0 Length of tarsus 1 11 1 10
. 7 6 5 0 ,, (of middle toe . . 1 7 1 6J
,, of wing . . . . 8 6 8 0 „ of middle nail . 0 6 . 0 6
,, of bill above . . . 0 8 0 71 „ of hind toe • . 0 7 0 6£
„ of bill to rictus . . . 1 2 1 2 „ o f hind nail . . 0 0 4
— R .
[132.] 1. C o l u m b a ( E c t o p i s t e s ) m i g r a t o r i a . (Sw.) Passenger Pigeon.
Genus, Columba, Linn. Sub-genus, Ectopistesf, Swains.
Columba migratoria. Forster, Phil. Trans., lxii., p. 398, No. 19.
Passenger Pigeon. Penn. Arct.Zool., ii., p. 322, No. 187- Wils., v., p. 102, pi. 44, f. 1; male.
Columba migratoria. Sab. Frankl. Joum., p. 679. Bonap. Syn., No. 200.
Mimewuck. Cree Indians.
This celebrated bird arrives in the fur-countries in the latter end of May, and
departs in October. It annually attains the sixty-second degree of latitude in
the warmer central districts, but reaches the fifty-eighth parallel on the coast of
Hudson’s Bay in very fine summers only. Mr. Hutchins mentions a flock of
these pigeons visiting and staying two days at York Factory, in 1775, as a
remarkable occurrence. A few hordes of Indians, that frequent the low, flooded
tracts at the south end of Lake Winipeg, subsist principally on the pigeons
during a period of the summer when the sturgeon-fishery is unproductive, and
the Zizania aquatica has not yet ripened ; but, farther north, these birds are too
few in number to furnish a material article of diet. In Canada, throughout the
. The two central pairs of tail feathers would bo more properly, perhaps, termed long coverts; their barbs are
softer, and their webs do not wear away on the edges (or at least not so strongly) as the true tail feathers.—R.
f Th. txro*i&, peregre dbeo.
3 A 2