<h2><SPAN name="THE_SHARP-TAILED_GROUSE" id="THE_SHARP-TAILED_GROUSE"></SPAN> THE SHARP-TAILED GROUSE.</h2>
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<div class="verse">In open woodlands far remote</div>
<div class="verse">The Sharp-tails utter their cackling note,</div>
<div class="verse">And on the wild prairie ground</div>
<div class="verse">Their simple nest and eggs are found.</div>
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<div class="verse">Long years agone, in countless pairs</div>
<div class="verse">They courted, danced, and "put on airs,"</div>
<div class="verse">But hunters, greedy, cruel—strange!</div>
<div class="verse">Have driven them beyond their range.</div>
<div class="verse ar sc">C. C. M.</div>
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<p class="drop-cap">A WELL-KNOWN observer, who
has spent many years in the
West, says that the Sharp-tailed
Grouse, being a bird of
the wild prairies and open woodlands,
has gradually retreated westward as
the settlements have advanced, and will
soon be a rare bird, to be looked for
only in the sand-hills and unsettled portions
of the country.</p>
<p>During the summer months this bird
inhabits the open prairies, retiring in
winter to the ravines and wooded lands,
and when the snow is deep and the
weather severe often hides and roosts
beneath the snow. This sometimes
proves the destruction of the birds, the
entrance to the roosting-place being
filled by falling snow and frozen over.</p>
<p>The Sharp-tails feed chiefly on Grasshoppers,
seeds, buds, blossoms, and
berries.</p>
<p>"When walking about on the ground
they stand high on their legs, with their
sharp-pointed tails slightly elevated,
and when flushed, rise with a whirring
sound of the wings, uttering as they go a
guttural <i>kuk-kuk-kuk</i>, and swiftly wing
themselves away in a direct course.
The birds have several cackling notes,
and the males a peculiar crowing or
low call, that in tone sounds somewhat
like the call of the Turkey. In the
early spring, as the love season approaches,
they select a mound or slight
elevation on the open prairies for a
courtship ground, where they assemble
at early dawn, the males dancing and
running about in a circle before the
females in a most ludicrous manner,
facing each other with lowering head,
raised feathers and defiant looks, crossing
and recrossing each other's paths in
a strutting, pompous way, seldom fighting,
each acting as if confident of making
the greatest display, and thus winning
the admiration of and capturing
the hen of his choice. These meetings
and dances are kept up until the hens
cease laying and begin to sit."</p>
<p>These Grouse place the nest in a
tuft of grass or under a low, stunted
bush. A hollow in the ground is
worked out to fit the body and lined
with a few blades of grass arranged in
a circular form. The hens attend
wholly to the hatching and rearing of
the young and are attentive and watchful
mothers.</p>
<p>The flesh of the Sharp-tail is lighter
in color and more highly esteemed than
that of the Prairie Hen, and the bird
is therefore hunted more industriously.</p>
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<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</SPAN></span></p>
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