The Range of the Sharp-Tailed Grouse in New Mexico
The Range of the Sharp-tailed Grouse in New Mexico. - Mrs. Vernon Bailey in her work on the Birds of New Mexico (p. 210) records the Columbian Sharp-tailed Grouse (Pedioecetes PhasianeUus colwnbianus) only from Johnson, Barillo and Fisher Peak Mesas, east and northeast of Raton, from information secured by Mr. J. S. Ligon. As indication of a more extensive range in earlier times I wish to record the distal part of a tibiotarsus of a Sharp-tail identified in a considerable collection of bird and mammal bones collected during archeological work in a cave near Jemex Springs, New Mexico, and received for identification from Mr. Paul Reiter, Curator of the Museum of New Mexico at Santa Fe. Associated with the specimen were numerous bones of turkey and of dusky grouse, and fragments from a teal of the genus Qwrquedula, a hawk of the genus Buteo, the American Merganser, and the Great Homed Owl. The cave seems to have been used by Indians as a temporary camp site at a date set at about 1300 A.D.--ALEXANDER WETMORE, U. S. National Museum, Washington, D. C., December 9, 1935.
