Part 98

=Dendragapus.= Tail of twenty feathers; an inflatable air-sac on side of the neck. Size large. (Type, T. obscurus, Say.)

The American species of Wood Grouse appear, on comparison, to be generically distinct from Tetrao, of the Old World, (type, Tetrao urogallus,) and, moreover, are themselves comprised under two definable subgenera. Canace proper has a near relative in Falcipennis, Elliot, (type, Tetrao falcipennis, Hartlaub,) of Siberia, which differs merely in the attenuation of the primaries, and seems to us not separable from Canace. There is no European genus nearly related to our birds. T. urogallus differs very essentially in high, compressed, and light-colored bill, elongated and stiffened feathers of the whole head and neck, metallic colors, etc. T. (Lyrurus) tetrix approaches nearer in the bill, but also has metallic colors and a very peculiarly formed tail. Thus it seems absolutely necessary to adopt the name Canace, of Reichenbach, as a generic term by which to designate the American Wood Grouse.

SUBGENUS CANACE, REICHENBACH.

Canace, REICHENBACH, Av. Syst. Nat. 1851. (Type, Tetrao canadensis, L.)

GEN. CHAR. Tail of sixteen feathers, rounded, the feathers broad to the end. A colored (red or yellow) “comb” of naked skin over the eye. No inflatable air-sac on side of the neck. No crest, nor unusual plumes, about the head or neck.

Species and Varieties.

=T. canadensis.= Above distinctly barred with plumbeous and black; beneath black, with a white border to the throat, a white pectoral band, and white markings on the sides. Female barred with ochraceous, gray and black above, and with orange-ochraceous and black on the lower parts.

Tail rounded, tipped with rufous; upper tail-coverts tipped narrowly with deep ash. Hab. British America, east of the Rocky Mountains, from Alaska (Yukon region) to northern border of United States …

var. canadensis.

Tail nearly even, black to the tip, or else with a narrow white terminal bar; upper tail-coverts broadly tipped with pure white. Hab. Northern Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast …

var. franklini.

Canace canadensis, var. canadensis, LINN.

SPRUCE PARTRIDGE; CANADA GROUSE.

Tetrao canadensis, LINN. Syst. Nat. I, 1758, 159.—FORSTER, Phil. Trans. LXII, 1772, 389.—SABINE, Zoöl. App. Franklin’s Exped. 683.—BONAP. Amer. Orn. III, 1830, pl. xxi, f. 2, ♀.—IB. Am. Phil. Trans. III, N. S. 1830, 391.—RICH. F. Bor. Amer. II, 1831, 346, pl. lxii, ♀.—NUTTALL, Man. I, 1832, 667.—AUD. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 437; V, 1839, 563, pl. clxxvi.—IB. Birds Amer. V, 1842, 83, pl. cclxciv.—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 622.—MAYNARD, B. E. Mass. 1870, 138 (Massachusetts).—COUES, P. A. N. S. 1861, 226.—GRAY, Cat. Brit. Mus. 1867, 86.—DALL & BANNISTER, Tr. Chicago Ac. I, 1869, 287.—FINSCH, Abh. Nat. Verz. III, 1872, 61. Canace canadensis, REICH. Av. Syst. Nat. 1851, p. xxix. Type, BONAP. Comptes Rendus, XLV, 1857, 428.—ELLIOT, P. A. N. S. 1864, 23.—IB. Monog. Tetraon. pl. Tetrao canace, LINN. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 275. Black Spotted Heathcock, EDWARDS, Glean. pl. cxviii. Spotted Grouse, PENNANT.

SP. CHAR. Tail of sixteen feathers. Above black. Feathers above distinctly banded with plumbeous; beneath uniform black, with a pectoral band of white, and white on the sides of the belly. Chin and throat above, black. Tail with a broad brownish-orange terminal band. Length, 16.20; wing, 6.70; tail, 5.44.

Female smaller, but somewhat similar; the black bars above broader, the inner gray bars of each feather, including the tail, replaced by broader ones of brownish-orange. The under parts have the feathers black, barred with the brownish-orange, which, on the tips of the belly-feathers, is pure white. The clear continuous black of the head and breast is wanting. The scapulars, greater coverts, and sides are streaked as in the male.

A female (No. 39,136, G. A. Boardman) from Maine differs from the above description in having the ground of the plumage a bright orange-rufous, the distinct bars of which are broader than the black ones; this is probably an autumnal bird, and represents the peculiar plumage of that season.

Males vary, individually, in the extent or uniformity of the black of the breast.

Specimens from Alaska (Nulato, Kodiak, etc.), Red River, Liard’s River and Fort Liard, Hudson’s Bay Territory, Canada, and Maine, appear to be absolutely identical.

The young in downy state are pale buff-yellow; the head above, with the back and wings, pale fulvous; a black stripe on side of head (from bill to end of auriculars), two spots on crown, and transverse crescentic spots on back and wings, black.

HAB. Spruce forests and swamps of the Northern United States to the Arctic seas; west nearly to Rocky Mountains.

HABITS. This bird, variously known as the Spruce or Wood Partridge, Canada, Black, or Spotted Grouse, is found, in favorable localities, from the Northern United States as far north as the woods extend, to the Arctic Ocean, being found, even in midwinter, nearly to the 70th parallel. Sir John Richardson found all the thick and swampy black-spruce forests between Canada and the Arctic Sea abounding with this species. In winter it descends into Maine, Northern New York, and Michigan. Its migrations are, however, only partial, as it is found in the severest weather of midwinter, in considerable numbers, as far north as latitude 67°. According to Mr. Douglas, west of the Rocky Mountains it is replaced by the T. franklini. This bird is said to perch in trees, in flocks of eight or ten, and is so stupid that it may be taken by slipping a noose, fastened to the end of a stick, over its head. When disturbed, it flies heavily a short distance, and then alights again among the interior branches of a tree. Richardson invariably found its crop filled with the buds of the spruce-trees in the winter, and at that time its flesh was very dark and had a strong resinous taste. In districts where the Pinus banksiana grows it is said to prefer the buds of that tree. In the summer it feeds on berries, which render its flesh more palatable.

Captain Blakiston states that he has found this species as far west as Fort Carlton, and Mr. Ross has traced it northward on the Mackenzie to the Arctic coast.

Mr. Audubon met with it in Maine, in the vicinity of Eastport, where they were only to be met with in the thick and tangled forests of spruce and hackmatack. They were breeding in the inner recesses of almost impenetrable woods of hackmatack or larches. He was informed that they breed in that neighborhood about the middle of May, a full month sooner than they do in Labrador. In their love-season the males are said to exhibit many of the singular manners also noticeable in the other members of this family. They strut before the female on the ground, something in the manner of the common domestic Turkey-cock, occasionally rising in a spiral manner above her in the air; at the same time, both when on the ground and in the air, they beat their wings violently against their body, thereby producing a peculiar drumming sound, which is said to be much clearer than the well-known drumming of the Ruffed Grouse. These sounds can be heard at a considerable distance from the place where they are made.

The female constructs a nest of a bed of dry twigs, leaves, and mosses, which is usually carefully concealed, on the ground and under low horizontal branches of fir-trees. The number of eggs is said to vary from eight to eighteen in number. It is imagined by the common people that where more than ten eggs are found in the same nest they are the product of two females, who aid each other in their charge. The eggs are described by Audubon as of a deep fawn-color, irregularly splashed with different tints of brown. They have but a single brood in a season, and the young follow the mother as soon as they leave the shell.

As soon as incubation commences, the males desert the females and keep in small flocks by themselves, removing to different woods, where they usually become much more shy and wary than at any other season of the year.

In their movements on the ground these birds are said to resemble our common Quail, rather than the Ruffed Grouse. They do not jerk their tails in the manner of the latter bird, as they walk, nor are they known to burrow in the snow; but when they are pursued they invariably take refuge in trees, from which they cannot be readily made to fly. When driven from one place of refuge to another, they accompany their flight with a few clucks, and those sounds they repeat when they alight. When a flock thus alights, it may all be readily secured by a little precaution and pains. It is said that they are so unwary and regardless of the near presence of man, that when thus in the imagined shelter of a tree they will permit themselves to be approached, the whole flock shot, or even knocked down with a stick. Sometimes they may all be taken alive, one after the other, by means of a noose affixed to the end of a long pole.

According to Audubon, the Canada Grouse indicate the approach of rainy weather by retiring to roost at an unusual time in the day, whenever a storm is impending. If observed to fly up to their roost at midday, it rarely fails to rain or snow before the evening; and if, on the contrary, they remain busily engaged in search of food until sunset, the night and the following morning are pretty sure to be fresh and clear.