Volume 6, Plate XIV / Ornithology (Birds)

Ruffed Grouse

Tetrao umbellus

Tetrao umbellus, found from the fifty sixth parallel to the Gulf of Mexico and abundant in the United States, is about eighteen inches long, its plumage a mixture of brown, chestnut, and grey relieved by black neck tufts and a broad black tail band. Solitary and seen in pairs, the male is famed for drumming, beating his stiffened wings in quickening strokes that swell to distant thunder, the female laying five to twelve dull yellowish eggs.