July, i9o 5 [ THE, SAGE GROUSE Io3 galls (see accompanying illustration) render him one of our handsomest game birds. By the first of December one can find the starting frills and the young pin leathers of white that border the galls and front of throat. The frills start from the sides of the neck and vary in number and length. They are pencil like, the point being armed by a little brush which is slightly curved at the tip. When the bird is traveling or at ease the plumes are flattened against the shoulder, but if frightened, he usually runs with these partly erected with the other feathers of the head and neck. The young males (sometimes called bulls) are not so dark or well frilled as the old, but rather frosted. The throats of the old males are also darker. I have heard them drum as early as December. This perf?rmance is most often observed where hundreds of males and females have congregated t?gether, a custom which they have in the fall of the year. By February the males are all drumming, but this is not continued during bad weather which closes the session until fair weather returns. By the latter part of tile month the males are in full dress. Their protracted. meetings last until the first days of May. After the violets and buttercups have come and the song of the sage thrush begins, their drumming is heard but occasionally. Their costume is becoming shabby and soiled, not so presentable. By the balmy June days, they have lost most of their frills, and the breast is dirty and worn from rolling in the dust and stretching on the ground in birding. They are credited with soiling the breast while drumming, but I have never observed this to be one of the causes during my entire fifteen years with them. When drumming they stand very erect, holding the wings away from the sides and nearly perpendicularly, while the large loose skin of the neck is worked up, and the head drawn in and out until the white feathers are brought to the chin. At the stone time the galls are filled with air until the birds look as if they were carrying snowballs on their shoulders. Then the skin which lies between the galls is drawn in with a sucking movement, thus bringing the galls together or nearly so. With this action the air is expelled from the throat producing the noise, which is hard to mimic and which resembles that of an old pump just within hearing distance. The first sound is that of a low "punk" the next "de," followed by the highest, "punk punk," and is made without movement of the wings. After the bird has accomplished this feat he walks away a few paces either in a straight line or a circle, with wings down, hanging loosely, but not grating on the ground. At times they do drag the wings as they strut ahmg with tail spread and erect, though not so perpendicular as that of a turkey. Again they will dance about with all the pomp of a male pigeon. Their courts are generally in very conspicuous places, being either on some barren flat or moraine where they may be seen from a distance. The males, yearlings, and old are social and congregate at these places in buncites comprising from twenty-five to a hundred or more. These birds do not mate, s. far as I have been able to learn, but the females come to these courts from all quarters at about sundown or early in the morning. At such times by patient watching one may see a hen coming in in very rapid flight. The wing motion is comprised of from three to five strokes with soaring between. At the first rising from the ground the flight of the males is rather laborious, but after a start is made it is rapid and graceful. At the drumming period the males are very jealous and many fights, some of which are quite serious, take place. The fight consists in one bird seizing another by tile head, neck, or jacket and pulling and beating with the wings. Its duration is very brief, one or the other giving in. After the session on the bird-
