This bird, which was first mentioned by Lewis and Clark,[4] has since
become well known to the fur traders that frequent the banks of the
Colombia. Several specimens have been sent to England by the agents of
the Hudson's Bay Company. Mr. David Douglas has published the following
account of the manners of the species, the only one hitherto given.
[3] Or Grouse.
[4] The adventurous travellers to the Source of the Missouri.
"The flight of these birds is slow, unsteady, and affords but little
amusement to the sportsman. From the disproportionately small, convex,
thin-quilled, wing,--so thin, that a vacant space, half as broad as a
quill appears between each,--the flight may be said to be a sort of
fluttering more than any thing else: the bird giving two or three claps
of the wings in quick succession, at the same time hurriedly rising;
then shooting or floating, swinging from side to side, gradually
falling, and thus producing a clapping, whirring sound. When started,
the voice is '_cuck, cuck, cuck_,' like the common pheasant. They pair
in March and April. The love-song is a confined, grating, but not
offensively disagreeable, tone,--something that we can imitate, but have
a difficulty in expressing--'_Hurr-hurr--hurr-r-r-r hoo_,' ending in a
deep hollow tone, not unlike the sound produced by blowing into a large
reed. Nest on the ground, under the shade of _Purshia_ and _Artemisia_,
or near streams, among _Phalaris arundinacea_, carefully constructed of
dry grass, and slender twigs. Eggs from thirteen to seventeen, about the
size of those of a common fowl, of a wood-brown colour, with irregular
chocolate blotches on the thick end. The young leave the nest a few
hours after they are hatched. In the summer and autumn months these
birds are seen in small troops, and in winter and spring in flocks of
several hundreds. Plentiful through the barren arid plains of the river
Colombia; also in the interior of North California. They do not exist on
the banks of the river Missouri; nor have they been seen in any place
east of the Rocky Mountains."
The general colour of the upper plumage is light hair-brown, mottled and
variegated with dark umber-brown and yellowish-white. The under plumage
is white and unspotted on the breast and part of the body; but dark
umber-brown, approaching to black, on the lower hall of the body, and
part of the flanks; the latter towards the vent are marked as on the
upper plumage. The under tail coverts are black, broadly tipped with
white. The feathers of the thighs and tarsi are light hair-brown,
mottled with darker lines. The throat and region of the head is varied
with blackish on a white ground. The shafts of all the feathers on the
breast are black, rigid, and look like hairs; but those of the
scale-like feathers of the sides are white and thicker. The bill and
toes are blackish. The bill is thick and strong: the ridge is advanced
to a remarkable extent towards the front, and divides the thickset
feathers which cover the nostrils by a convex ridge of three quarters of
an inch long. This is a very peculiar and important character, since it
plainly indicates the analogy of this form to _Ramphastos, Buceros_,[5]
and numerous other rasorial types. On each side the breast, the present
specimen exhibits two prominent naked protuberances, as in the female
bust, perfectly destitute of hair or feathers. On each side of these
protuberances, and higher up on the neck, is a tuft of feathers, having
their shafts considerably elongated and naked, gently curved, and tipped
with a pencil of a few black radii; they are placed much behind the
naked protuberances, and do not appear intended to cover them when not
inflated. On the sides of the neck, and across the breast, below the
protuberances, the feathers are particularly short, rigid, and acute,
laying over each other with the same compactness and regularity as the
scales of a fish, excepting that their extremities are not rounded, but
acutely pointed. Lower down the breast these feathers, however, begin to
assume more of the ordinary shape; but the shafts still remain very
thick and rigid, while each is terminated by a slender, naked filament,
hornlike, shining, and somewhat flattened towards the end, where there
are a few obsolete radii. The wings in proportion to the size of the
bird, are very short; the lesser quills ending in a point. The tail is
rather lengthened and considerably rounded, each feather lanceolate, and
gradually attenuated to a fine point. The tarsi are somewhat elevated,
thickly clothed with feathers to the base of the toes, and over the
membrane which connects them. The length of this bird Mr. Swainson
thinks to have been 25 inches. The female bird, it should be added, has
neither the scale-like feathers nor projecting shafts of the male.
[5] See the Rhinoceros Bird, page 312. _The Mirror_, No. 547.
The CLAW is that of the PILEATED WOODPECKER, (Picus _Dryotomus_)
_Pileatus_, SWAINSON, which has much less power than the claw of the
typical Woodpecker; the anterior toe (i.e. middle toe,) being longer and
stronger than the posterior--a structure the very reverse of that which
characterizes the typical species.
LEGS AND FEET of the ROCKY MOUNTAIN SPOTTED GROUSE, (_Tetrao
Franklinii_, DOUGLAS,) which are thickly covered with long and hair-like
feathers. The bird inhabits the valleys of the Rocky Mountains from the
sources of the Missouri to those of the Mackenzie, and Mr. Douglas
informed Dr. Richardson that it is sparingly seen on the elevated
platforms which skirt the snowy peaks of Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens,
and Mount Baker. He adds, "It runs over the shattered rocks, and among
the brushwood with amazing speed, and only uses its wings as a last
effort to escape."
The birds of North America include about 320 species. They are divided
into migratory and resident; though comparatively few in the fur
countries are strictly entitled to be called resident. The raven and
Canadian and short-billed jays were the only species recognised as being
equally numerous at their breeding-places in winter and summer. Many of
the species which raise two or more broods within the United States rear
only one in the fur countries, the shortness of the summer not admitting
of their doing more. We have mentioned the number and beauty of the
hawks and owls. The white-headed eagle inhabits the fur countries as
well as the United States. The melody of the song-birds is described to
be exquisite. The verdant lawns and cultivated glades of Europe fail in
producing that exhilaration and joyous buoyancy of mind which travellers
have experienced in treading the Arctic wilds of America, when their
snowy covering had just been replaced by an infant but vigorous
vegetation. The duck family are, however, the birds of the greatest
importance, as they furnish, in certain seasons of the year, in many
extensive districts, almost the only article of food that can be
procured. The arrival of the water-fowl, it is said, marks the
commencement of spring and diffuses as much joy among the wandering
hunters of the Arctic regions, as the harvest or vintage in more genial
climates. The period of their emigration southwards again, in large
flocks, at the close of summer, is another season of plenty bountifully
granted to the natives, and enabling them to encounter the rigour and
privations of a northern winter.
Dr. Richardson acknowledges the liberal assistance afforded him by the
Hudson's Bay Company, in the collection of specimens. Indeed, to this
public-spirited body are we indebted for our earliest systematic
knowledge of the Hudson's Bay birds. The reader may likewise witness a
few living evidences of the Company's liberality, in the fine collection
of eagles and owls presented by them to the Zoological Society, and
exhibiting in the Gardens in the Regent's Park. Such devotion to the
advancement of science cannot be too proudly perpetuated in the history
of a society established for commercial objects.
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