In some spots, the limitless wastes are covered by a scrubby plant known
as mountain sage. It rises from a tough gnarled root in a number of
spiral shoots, which finally form a single trunk, varying in
circumference from six inches to two feet. The leaves are grey, with a
strong offensive smell resembling true sage. In other places there
appear mixed with it the equally scrubby but somewhat greener
grease-wood--the two resinous shrubs affording the only fuel on which
the emigrant can rely while following the Rocky Mountain trail.
These sage regions are the habitation of a magnificent bird--the Sage
Cock. He may well be called the King of the grouse tribe. When
stalking erect through the sage, he looks as large as a good-sized wild
turkey--his average length being, indeed, about thirty-two inches, and
that of the hen two feet. They differ somewhat, according to the season
of the year. The prevailing colour is that of a yellowish-brown or warm
grey, mottled with darker brown, shading from cinnamon to jet-black.
The dark spots are laid on in a longitudinal series of crescents. The
under parts are a light grey, sometimes almost pure white, barred with
streaks of brown, or pied with black patches. In the elegance of his
figure and fineness of his outlines he vies with the golden pheasant.
His tail differs from that of the grouse family in general by coming to
a point instead of opening like a fan. On each side of his neck he has
a bare orange-coloured spot, and near it a downy epaulet. His call is a
rapid "Cut, cut, cut!" followed by a hollow blowing sound. He has the
partridge's habit of drumming with his wings, while the hen-bird knows
the trick of misleading the enemy from her young brood. He seldom rises
from the ground, his occasional flights being low, short, and laboured.
He runs with great speed, and in his favourite habitat dodges and skulks
with rapidity, favoured by the resemblance of his colour to the natural
tints of the scrub. Though sometimes called the Cock of the Plains, he
never descends into the plains, being always found on the higher
mountain regions.
When the snow begins to melt, the sage hen builds in the bush a nest of
sticks and reeds artistically matted together, and lays from a dozen to
twenty eggs, rather larger than those of the domestic fowl, of a tawny
colour, irregularly marked with chocolate blotches on the larger end.
When a brood is strong enough to travel, the parents lead their young
into general society. They are excessively tame, or bold. Often they
may be seen strutting between the gnarled trunk and ashen masses of
foliage peculiar to the sage scrub, and paying no more attention to the
traveller than would a barnyard drove of turkeys; the cocks now and then
stopping to play the dandy before their more Quakerly little hens,
inflating the little yellow pouches of skin on either side of their
necks, till they globe out like the pouches of a pigeon.