Western Bird Guide: Birds of the Rockies and West to the Pacific

by Charles K. Reed

FRANKLIN GROUSE.

299. Canachites franklini. 16 inches.

Upper parts dark gray, marked with black bands, and narrower bands of lighter gray; tail feathers black to the tip, with the upper tail coverts strongly barred with white; tail having sixteen feathers. Like the preceding these birds are at home in the dense evergreen forests. It is very similar to the eastern bird, the Canada Grouse, and has the same local name given it from its unsuspicious nature, of “Fool-hen.”

Nest.—Is placed on the ground under logs or low branching fir trees, and from eight to fifteen eggs are laid. These are brownish buff in color, spotted and blotched with rich brown (1.75 × 1.30).