“The Dusky Grouse breeds in the shady forests of the Columbia, where we heard and saw them throughout the summer. The male at various times of the day makes a curious uncouth tooting, almost like the sound made by blowing into the bung-hole of a barrel, boo, wh'h, wh'h, wh'h, wh'h, the last note descending into a kind of echo. We frequently tried to steal on the performer, but without success, as, in fact, the sound is so strangely managed that you may imagine it to come from the left or right indifferently. They breed on the ground, as usual, and the brood keep together nearly all winter. The Rutted Grouse also breeds here commonly, and I one day found the nest concealed near a fallen log, but it was at once forsaken after this intrusion, though I did not touch the eggs.”
— Mr. Nuttall, quoted in John James Audubon’s Birds of America
