Sept, 1915 CHARACTERISTIC BIRDS OF THE DAKOTA PRAIRIES 175 over back, neck pouches inflated like'oranges, long black neck tufts projected beyond the yellow pouches. ,1oyful moment to actually see them in the flesh! Nondescript calls, strange cackles, together with muffled booming that sounded little louder than it did a mile across the farms, came from the cock strutting back and forth across the hilltop. The female, looking in the distance like an ordinary hen, shadowed the backgrormd, giving point to the dramatic perform- ance and the conduct of the two cocks, for a second had come up over the hill and the two flew at each other, hopping up into the air--dancing ?--? their excite- ment. On another knoll a third cock appeared, and strutted around booming and
crowing so ostentatiously, so compellingly, that we could but discover the cause--
a demure, indifferent hen picking around in the corner of the field below. Though we saw but five biTds, the farmer who owned the hill told us that there were as many as a dozen that frequented it. Ten days later when driving with a farmer in North Dakota--driving in 'the free western way over fields pitted with badger holes one moment and through silver-leaf bushes up to the horse's head the next--a Prairie Hen sprang up from before the horse's feet and with white outer tail feathers conspicuous sailed low over the grass for a few yards, then lit and ran with dragging wings and van- ished. We got out and hunted around till we flushed her from some low bushes, when she flew with a kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk. The farmer going back to the spot from which she had first risen called me, for shrill piping voices were coming from invisible chicks in the grass. At the alarming sound of human voices, however, the well-trained brood fell silent and we had to leave them rmdis- covered. After that most of the "Prairie Chickens" I saw in North Dakota were Sharp-tailed Grouse! When the big birds whirr up from under your feet, the projecting tail feathers are a great help in identification and might well deter the broods from following after strange mothers, or so it seemed when a parent of each species flew up beside our road, one of them trailing a large family of young. I had several interesting encounters with Pedicecetes. One day, when im- pelled to answer the call of the prairie in spite of the heat that was rousing sore complaints at the farm, I headed for a small clump of cottonwoods that suggested good nesting sites. The three farm dogs reached the trees before me flushing a grouse with pointed tail which flew with beat and soar, several beats and a soar, uttering a low guttural cluck-uk-uk-uk-ak. As I stepped from the hot sun into the shade of the cottonwood thicket, the little trees rustled hard with the prairie wind, fanning out coolness, and the dogs made a bolt for the inside of the clump where they lay with tongues out and sides beating. The old Grouse had shown excellent judgment on a hot summer day. A few mornings later (July 3), the farmer came in and asked if I wanted to see some Prairie Chickens, that being the general term for the two forms of grouse. lie had seen an old hen and her brood in the potato patch. As we walked slowly down between the rows of potatoes, small yellowish brown chicks which/ooked like young turkeys, one with a suggestion of crest, flew rom almost nnder our feet. Farther on, the mother started out from cover and crouching over like a hunter 'making a sneak', ran with swinging gait down the furrows. When pressed she flew at a wide angle from the young, though all headed for the strip of woods at the foot of the hill. . At this point the farmer returned to the house, but I walked slowly and
