Part 105

The late Mr. David Eckby, of Boston, furnished Mr. Audubon with a full account of their habits, as observed by him in Martha’s Vineyard, and also on the island of Nashawena, where they were then kept in a preserve. They were observed never to settle down where the woods were thick or the bushes tangled, but invariably in the open spaces; and as they never start up from the thick foliage, but always seek to disengage themselves from all embarrassment in their flight by reaching the nearest open space, they offer to the sportsman a very fair mark. The sound they utter in rising, when hard pressed, is said to resemble the syllables coo-coo-coo. They were observed to feed on the berries of the barberry, which abound on those islands, boxberries, cranberries, the buds of roses, pines, and alders, and on the nuts of the post-oaks, and in the summer upon the more esculent berries. At the West they frequently feed on the seeds of the sumach. They are also very destructive to the buds of the apple, and are very fond of the fruit of the fox-grape and the leaves and berries of the mistletoe. During the planting-season their visits to the wheat and corn fields are often productive of great damage.

Three eggs in my collection, taken from a nest near Osage Village, in Indian Territory, which contained sixteen eggs, measure, one 1.65 by 1.20 inches, another 1.63 by 1.28, and the third 1.75 by 1.28 inches. They are of a rounded-oval shape, more obtuse at one end than the other, and of a uniform color, which varies from a light clay-color to a dark tawny-brown. The eggs are sometimes, but not always, minutely sprinkled with brown.

Cupidonia cupido, var. pallidicinctus, RIDGWAY.

THE TEXAS PRAIRIE HEN.

Cupidonia cupido, var. pallidicinctus, RIDGWAY.

SP. CHAR. Similar to var. cupido, but above nearly equally barred with pale grayish-ochraceous and dusky or blackish-brown. Beneath white, with faint, but sharply defined, narrow bars of pale grayish-brown. Top of head with light bars prevailing; head-stripes reddish-brown. Male (10,007, Prairies of Texas, Staked Plains?; Capt. J. Pope, U. S. A.). Wing, 8.30; tail, 4.20; tarsus, 1.70; middle toe, 1.50. Female (10,005, same locality, etc.). Wing, 8.20.

HAB. Southwestern Prairies (Staked Plains, Texas?).

In its relations with the C. cupido, this race bears a direct analogy to Pediœcetes columbianus, as compared with P. phasianellus, and to Ortyx texanus, as distinguished from O. virginianus. Thus in a much less development of the tarsal feathers it agrees with the southern Pediœcetes, while in paler, grayer colors, and smaller size, it is like the southwestern Ortyx.

GENUS BONASA, STEPHENS.

Bonasa, STEPHENS, Shaw’s Gen. Zoöl. XI, 1819. (Type, Tetrao bonasia, L.) Tetrastes, KEYS. & BLAS. Wirb. Europ. 1840, p. lxiv.

GEN. CHAR. Tail widening to the end, its feathers very broad, as long as the wings; the feathers soft, and eighteen in number. Tarsi naked in the lower half; covered with two rows of hexagonal scales anteriorly, as in the Ortyginæ. Sides of toes strongly pectinated. Naked space on the side of throat covered by a tuft of broad soft feathers. Portion of culmen between the nasal fossæ about one third the total length. Top of head with a soft crest.

This genus, in its partly naked tarsi, with two rows of scutellæ anteriorly, indicates a close approach to the American Partridges, or Quails. It has a single European representative, the B. sylvestris, Steph.

Species and Varieties.

=B. umbellus.= Rump with cordate light spots; sides with transverse dark spots. Tail with two gray bands (one terminal), with a broad blackish zone between them. Cervical tufts glossy black or dark brown, with a semi-metallic steel-blue or green border.

Prevailing color bright ochraceous-rufous; tail always rufous in the Middle and Southern States, occasionally gray on the Alleghany Mountains, and in New England States; usually gray in Eastern British America. Hab. Eastern Province of North America …

var. umbellus.

Prevailing color bluish-ashy; tail always pale ash. Hab. Rocky Mountains of United States, and interior regions of British America, to the Yukon …

var. umbelloides.

Prevailing color dark ferruginous; tail always dark ferruginous near the coast, occasionally dark gray in mountainous regions. Hab. Northwest coast region (Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, etc.) …

var. sabini.

The above synopsis is intended to present in the simplest form the characteristic features of the three definable races of this exceedingly variable species, as exhibited in a light rusty rufous-tailed form of the Atlantic States, a pale gray ashy-tailed form of the Rocky Mountains of the United States and British America, and a dark rusty rufous-tailed form of the northwest coast region. These three, when based on specimens from the regions where their characters are most exaggerated and uniform, appear sufficiently distinct; but when we find that specimens from the New England States have the rufous bodies of umbellus and gray tails of umbelloides, and that examples from Eastern Oregon and Washington Territory have the dark rusty bodies of sabini and gray tails of umbelloides, and continue to see that the transition between any two of the three forms is gradual with the locality, we are unavoidably led to the conclusion that they are merely geographical modifications of one species. The continuity of the dark subterminal tail-band in umbellus, and its interruption in umbelloides,—characters on which great stress is laid by Mr. Elliot in his monograph, above cited,—we find to be contradicted by the large series which we have examined; neither condition seems to be the rule in either race, but the character proves to be utterly unreliable.

In the less elevated and more southern portions of the Eastern Province of the United States, as in the Mississippi Valley and the States bordering the Gulf and South Atlantic, the rufous type is prevalent; the tail being always, so far as the specimens we have seen indicate, of an ochraceous-rufous tint. Specimens with gray tails first occur on the Alleghany Mountains, and become more common in the New England States, the specimens from Maine having nearly all gray tails. Specimens from Labrador approach still nearer the var. umbelloides,—the extreme gray condition,—and agree with Alaskan specimens in having more brown than those from the interior portions of British America or the Rocky Mountains of the United States. More northern specimens of the inland form have, again, a greater amount of white than those from the south or coastward. Passing southward from Alaska toward Oregon, specimens become darker, until, in the dense humid forests of the region of the Columbia, a very dark plumage, with little or no gray, prevails, most similar to, but even more reddish and much darker, than the style of the Southern States of the Eastern Province. Passing from the low coast forests to those of the mountains, we find again equally dark specimens, but with grayish tails; the amount of gray increasing, and its shade lightening, as we approach the central Rocky Mountains.

The American species of Bonasa possesses a quite near analogue in the B. sylvestris, Bonap. (Tetrao bonasia, Linn.), or Hazel Grouse, of Europe. This species has almost exactly the same pattern of coloration (including tail-markings), but is very much smaller, has the neck-tufts rudimentary and white, and the throat black, instead of just the reverse.

Bonasa umbellus, var. umbellus, STEPHENS.

RUFFED GROUSE; PARTRIDGE; PHEASANT.

Tetrao umbellus, LINN. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 275, 6.—WILSON, Am. Orn. VI, 1812, 46, pl. xlix.—DOUGHTY, Cab. N. H. I, 1830, 13, pl. ii.—AUD. Orn. Biog. I, 1831, 211; V, 560, pl. xli.—IB. Birds Amer. V, 1842, 72, pl. ccxciii. Tetrao (Bonasia) umbellus, BONAP. Syn. 1828, 126.—IB. Mon. Tetrao, Am. Phil. Trans. III, 1830, 389.—NUTTALL, Man. I, 1832, 657. Bonasa umbellus, STEPHENS, Shaw, Gen. Zoöl. XI, 1824, 300.—BONAP. Comptes Rendus, XLV, 1857, 428.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 630.—ELLIOT, Monog. Tetr. pl.—GRAY, Cat. Brit. Mus. V, 1867, 89. Tetrao togatus, LINN. I, 1766, 275, 8.—FORSTER, Philos. Trans. LXII, 1772, 393. Tetrao tympanus, BARTRAM, Travels in E. Florida, 1791, 290. Ruffed Grouse, and Shoulder-knot Grouse, PENNANT & LATHAM.

Bonasa umbellus.]

SP. CHAR. Above ochraceous-brown, finely mottled with grayish; the scapulars and wing-coverts with pale shaft-streaks, the rump and upper tail-coverts with medial cordate spots of pale grayish. Tail ochraceous-rufous, narrowly barred with black, crossed terminally with a narrow band of pale ash, then a broader one of black, this preceded by another ashy one. (In specimens from the Alleghany Mountains and New England States, the tail usually more or less grayish to the base, sometimes entirely destitute of rufous tinge.) Throat and foreneck ochraceous. Lower parts white (ochraceous beneath the surface), with broad transverse bars of dilute brown, these mostly concealed on the abdomen. Lower tail-coverts pale ochraceous, each with a terminal deltoid spot of white, bordered with dusky. Neck-tufts brownish-black. Length, 18.00; wing, 7.20; tail, 7.00. Female smaller, and with the neck-tufts less developed, but colors similar. Young (39,161, St. Stephen’s, N. B.; G. A. Boardman). Brown above, and dingy-white beneath; a rufous tinge on the scapulars. Feathers of the jugulum, back, scapulars, and wing-coverts with broad medial streaks of light ochraceous, and black spots on the webs; jugulum with a strong buff tinge. Secondaries and wing-coverts strongly mottled transversely. Head dingy buff, the upper part more rusty; a post-ocular or auricular dusky patch, and a tuft of dusky feathers on the vertex. Chick. Above light rufous, beneath rusty-white; uniform above and below; a dusky post-ocular streak, inclining downwards across the auriculars. Bill whitish.