COCK OF THE PLAINS. 665 



ever, they not unfrequently rise to the low boughs of trees, 

 and then, staring about without much alarm, they be- 

 come an easy prey to the marksman. 



The ordinary weight of a full grown bird is about three 

 pounds, and they now sell, when they are to be had, in 

 New York and Boston, from 3 to 5 dollars the pair. 

 They have been raised under the Common Hen, but 

 prove so vagrant as to hold out no prospect of domestica- 

 tion. 



The Grous, or Heath-Hen, as it was also formerly called by the first 

 settlers, is about 19 inches long, and 27 in alar extent. The wing- like 

 tufts on the sides of the neck, each consisting of 18 feathers, of une- 

 qual length, are black, streaked with brown. I have not been able 

 to find the vesicular openings mentioned by Wilson, beneath these 

 appendages. Over the eye a warty bare space of an orange-color. 

 Chin cream-color. Above mottled transversely with black, pale ru- 

 fous, and white. Tail short, much rounded, and plain dusky, brown- 

 ish-white at the tip, with one web of the middle feather sometimes 

 mottled with black and pale brown. Below pale brown and white. 

 Feet dull yellow, the toes pectinated. Vent whitish. Iris reddish 

 hazel. — The female considerably smaller, and without the neck 

 wings and yellow space over the eye. 



COCK OF THE PLAINS. 



(Tetrao urophasianus , Bonap. Am, Orn. iii. pi. 21. fig. 1. [female.] 

 Leadbeater's Museum, London.) 



Sp. Charact. — Tail wedge-shaped, of 20 narrow, acuminated 

 feathers. — Male very dark. — Female and young mottled. 



This large and beautiful species of Grous, little infe- 

 rior to the Turkey in size, and the American counterpart 

 of the Cock of the Woods, was first seen by Lewis and 

 Clarke in the wild recesses within the central chains of 

 the Rocky Mountains, from whence they extend in ac- 

 cumulating numbers to the plains of the Columbia, and 

 are common throughout the Oregon Territory, as well 

 56* 



