Often, when the sharp crack of the gun, and the _ping_ of the fatal leaden messengers, has rung the death-peal of one of these prairie-chiefs, I have watched the whirring wing drop powerless, and the arrowy flight stop in mid-career, and, with a heavy thud, the bird come crashing down. Rushing to pick him up, and keeping my eye steadily on the spot where he fell, I have felt a little mystified at not seeing my friend: here he fell, I am quite sure; so I trudge up and down, circle round and round, until a slight movement—an effort to run, or a dying struggle—attracts my attention, and then I find I have been the whole time close to the fallen bird. But so closely do the back and outspread wings resemble the dead foliage and sandy soil, that it is almost impossible for the most practised eye to detect these birds when crouching on the ground; and there can be no doubt that it as effectually conceals them from birds of prey. This bird is abundantly distributed on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, ranging right and left of the Boundary-line, the 49th parallel of north latitude. It is particularly abundant on the tobacco-plains near the Kootanie river, round the Osoyoos lakes, and in the valley of the Columbia. I have never seen this grouse on the western side of the Cascade range. This bird is also found in the Red River settlements, in the north of Minnesota, as well as on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, and on the Mackenzie river. Mr. Ross notes it as far north as the Arctic Circle. Of the different species of grouse I met with in my rambles (described in vol. ii.) not one has come so often under my observation as this, the sharp-tailed grouse. Its favourite haunt is on open grassy plains,—in the morning keeping itself concealed in the thick long grass, but coming in about midday to the streams to drink, and dust itself in the sandy banks; it seldom goes into the timber, and, if it does, always remains close to the prairie, never retiring into the depths of the forest. They lay their eggs on the open prairie, in a tuft of grass, or by the foot of a small hillock; nesting early in the spring, and laying from twelve to fourteen eggs. The nest is a hole scratched out in the earth, a few grass-stalks and root-fibres laid carelessly and loosely over the bottom; the eggs are of a dark rusty-brown, with small splashes or speckles of darker brown thickly spattered over them.