The species of the genus _Bonasa_, of which the European _B. sylvestris_ is the type, does not inhabit the British Islands. It is perhaps the most delicate game-bird that comes to table. It is the _gelinotte_ of the French, the _Haselhuhn_ of Germans, and _Hjerpe_ of Scandinavians. Like its transatlantic congener _B. umbellus_, the ruffed grouse or birch-partridge (of which there are two other local forms, _B. umbelloides_ and _B. sabinii_), it is purely a forest-bird. The same may be said of the species of _Canace_, of which two forms are found in America, _C. canadensis_, the spruce-partridge, and _C. franklini_, and also of the Siberian _C. falcipennis_. Nearly allied to these birds is the group known as _Dendragapus_, containing three large and fine forms _D. obscurus_, _D. fuliginosus_, and _D. richardsoni_--all peculiar to North America. Then there are _Centrocercus urophasianus_, the sage-cock of the plains of Columbia and California, and _Pedioecetes_, the sharp-tailed grouse, with its two forms, _P. phasianellus_ and _P. columbianus_, while finally _Cupidonia_, the prairie-hen, also with two local forms, _C. cupido_ and _C. pallidicincta_, is a bird that in the United States of America possesses considerable economic value, enormous numbers being consumed there, and also exported to Europe. The various sorts of grouse are nearly all figured in Elliot's _Monograph of the Tetraoninae_, and an excellent account of the American species is given in Baird, Brewer and Ridgway's _North American Birds_ (iii. 414-465). See also SHOOTING. (A. N.) FOOTNOTES: [1] It seems first to occur (O. Salusbury Brereton, _Archaeologia_, iii. 157) as "grows" in an ordinance for the regulation of the royal household dated "apud Eltham, mens. Jan. 22 Hen. VIII.," i.e. 1531, and considering the locality must refer to black game. It is found in an Act of Parliament 1 Jac. I. cap. 27, S 2, i.e. 1603, and, as reprinted in the _Statutes at Large_, stands as now commonly spelt, but by many writers or printers the final e was omitted in the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1611 Cotgrave had "Poule griesche. A Moore-henne; the henne of the Grice [in ed. 1673 "Griece"] or Mooregame" (_Dictionarie of the French and English Tongues, s.v. Poule_). The most likely derivation seems to be from the old French word _griesche_, _greoche_ or _griais_ (meaning speckled, and cognate with _griseus_, grisly or grey), which was applied to some kind of partridge, or according to Brunetto Latini (_Tres._ p. 211) to a quail, "porce que ele fu premiers trovee en Grece." The Oxford Dictionary repudiates the possibility of "grouse" being a spurious singular of an alleged plural "grice," and, with regard to the possibility of "grows" being a plural of "grow," refers to Giraldus Cambrensis (c. 1210), _Topogr. Hib. opera_ (Rolls) v. 47: "gallinae campestres, quas vulgariter _grutas_ vocant."