The little stream at the Horse-Guards has on either side of it a belt of thin brush, and in this, and in the long grass close to the stream, we found the sharp-tailed grouse. There were hundreds of them—up they went, and, right and left, down they came again! It might have been the novelty of the scene, causing an undue anxiety and excitement, or perhaps it was the liver, or powder, or something else—who knows what?—but this I do know, that neither of us shot our best, but we made a glorious bag nevertheless. They rise with a loud rattling noise, and utter a peculiar cry, like ‘chuck, chuck, chuck,’ rapidly and shrilly repeated. On first rising the wings are moved with great rapidity, but after getting some distance off they sail along, the wings being almost quiescent.
They pair very early in the spring, long before the snow has gone off the ground, and their love-meetings are celebrated in a somewhat curious fashion. By the half-breeds and fur-traders these festivities are called chicken or pheasant dances. I was lucky enough to be present at several of these balls whilst at Fort Colville. Their usual time of assembling is about sunrise, and late in the afternoon; they select a high round-topped mound; and often, ere the fair are wooed and won, and the happy couple start on their domestic cares, the mound is trampled and beaten bare as a road.
I had often longed to be present at one of these chicken-dances; and it so happened that, riding up into the hills early one spring morning, my most ardent wishes were fully realised. The peculiar ‘chuck-chuck’ came clear and shrill upon the crisp frosty air, and told me a dance was afoot. I tied up my horse and my dog, and crept quietly along towards the knoll from whence the sound appeared to come. Taking advantage of some rocks, I weazled myself along, and, without exciting observation, gained the shelter of an old pine-stump close to the summit of a hillock; and there, sure enough, the ball was at its height.
Reader, can you go back to the days of your first pantomime, your first Punch-and-Judy, or bring to your remembrance the fresh, bounding, joyous delight that you felt in the days of your youth, when you had before your eyes some long and deeply-wished-for novelty? If you can, you will be able to imagine my childish pleasure when looking for the first time on a chicken-dance. There were about eighteen or twenty birds present on this occasion, and it was almost impossible to distinguish the males from the females, the plumage being so nearly alike; but I imagined the females were the passive ones. The four birds nearest to me were head to head, like gamecocks in fighting attitude—the neck-feathers ruffed up, the little sharp tail elevated straight on end, the wings dropped close to the ground, but keeping up by a rapid vibration a continued throbbing or drumming sound.
They circled round and round each other in slow waltzing-time, always maintaining the same attitude, but never striking at or grappling with each other; then the pace increased, and one hotly pursued the other until he faced about, and tête-à-tête went waltzing round again; then they did a sort of ‘Cure’ performance, jumping about two feet into the air until they were winded; and then they strutted about and ‘struck an attitude,’ like an acrobat after a successful tumble. There were others marching about, with their tails and heads as high as they could stick them up, evidently doing the ‘heavy swell;’ others, again, did not appear to have any well-defined ideas what they ought to do, and kept flying up and pitching down again, and were manifestly restless and excited—perhaps rejected suitors contemplating something desperate. The music to this eccentric dance was the loud ‘chuck-chuck’ continuously repeated, and the strange throbbing sound produced by the vibrating wings. I saw several balls after this, but in every one the same series of strange evolutions were carried out.
In reference to this bird’s adaptability to acclimatisation in our own country, it appears to me to be most admirably fitted for our hill and moorland districts. It is very hardy, capable of bearing a temperature of 30° to 33° below zero; feeds on seeds, berries, and vegetable matter—in every particular analogous to what it could find in our own hill-country; a good breeder, having usually from twelve to fourteen young at a brood; nests early, and would come to shoot about the same time as our own grouse. Snow does not hurt them in the slightest degree; they burrow into it, and feed on what they can find underneath it. The two specimens in the British Museum I shot in the Colville valley; they are male and female, in winter plumage; and anyone, who may feel an interest in getting these birds brought home, may there see for himself what fine handsome creatures they are.
But then comes the question—how are they to be obtained, and how brought to England? I do not imagine it would be a very difficult or expensive matter; the young birds in May could be easily obtained, at any point up the Columbia river, by employing the Indians to bring them to the riverside; and once on board steamer, they could be as easily fed as fowls. The great difficulty I have always had is in bringing the young birds from the interior to a vessel; they always die when transported on the backs of animals, however carefully packed. The continued jerking motion given to birds packed on the back of a mule or horse as he walks along has, according to my experience, been the sole cause of their dying ere you could reach water-carriage; but the fact of their being so close to water as they are along the Columbia river, would render their being brought home a very easy task.
The Bald-headed Eagle (Haliactus leucocephalus) is seen but seldom, as during its breeding-time it retires into the hills, and usually chooses a lofty pine as its nesting-place. Two of them had a nest near the Chilukweyuk lake, which was quite inaccessible, of immense size, and built entirely of sticks—the same nest being invariably used year after year by the same pair of birds. Their food consists mainly of fish, and it is a curious sight to watch an eagle plunge into the water, seize a heavy salmon, and rise with it without any apparent difficulty. Both the osprey and bald-headed eagle fish with their claws, never, as far as I have observed them, striking at a fish with the beak; during winter they collect, young and old together, round the Sumass lake; and as the cold becomes intense, they sit three and four on the limb of a pine-tree, or in a semi-stupid state, all their craft and courage gone, blinking and drowsy as an owl in daytime.
I have often, when walking under the trees where these half-torpid monarchs of the air sit side by side, fired and knocked one out from betwixt its neighbours, without causing them the slightest apparent alarm; three I picked up one morning frozen stiff as marble, having fallen dead from off their perch.
Why birds so powerfully winged should prefer to remain where the winters are sufficiently intense to freeze them to death, rather than go southward, where food is equally abundant, is a mystery I am unable to explain. Towards the fall of the year, when the hunting and fishing-grounds of the Old-man (Sea-la-ca, as the Indians designate the eagle, on account of its white head) grow scant of game, hunger prompts them to be disagreeably bold. Constantly a fat mallard, that I had taken a vast amount of trouble to stalk, was pounced upon by a watchful eagle, and borne off, ere the report of my gun was lost in the hills, or the smoke had cleared away; indeed, I have sometimes given the robber the benefit of a second barrel, as punishment for his thievery. Numberless ducks have been lost to me in this way. This eagle is by far the most abundant of the falcon tribe in British Columbia, and always a conspicuous object in ascending a river; he is seated on the loftiest tree or rocky pinnacle, and soars off circling round, screaming like a tortured demon, as if in remonstrance at such an impudent intrusion into its solitudes. The adult plumage is not attained until the fourth year from the nest.