212 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



TYMPANUCHUS CUPIDO PINNATUS (Brewster) 



Greater Prairie Hen 



Adults. — Similar to that of the corresponding sex of the nominate 

 race but differing in having no conspicuous buffy-whitish terminal spots 

 on the scapulars; the pinnae or neck tufts are composed of more than 

 10 feathers and the feathers are less pointed more abruptly truncate in 

 shape; the general tone of the upper parts averages less rufescent, the 

 broad tips of the feathers of the back, rump, and upper tail coverts 

 especially are less rufescent than in T. c. cupido, being pinkish buflf (in- 

 stead of pale tawny-olive), and the dark bars on the underparts are gen- 

 erally narrower, and the thighs paler, the whole underparts seeming more 

 whitish^^ iris raw umber ; "comb" deep cadmium ; gular sacs dark Indian 

 yellow tinged brownish and slightly veined with red ; toes dark brownish 

 ocher, back of tarsi and lower surface of toes bright ocher-yellow ; claws 

 blackish tipped with whitish on the outer claw only. 



First-ivintcr plumage. — Not certainly separable from the same stage 

 of the nominate race. 



Juvenal. — Forehead, sides of crown, and occiput between russet and 

 Sudan brown; center of crown fuscous-blackish (formed by blackish 

 tips of the otherwise russet feathers, occiput speckled with blackish ; 

 hindneck pinkish buff to pale pinkish buff, the feathers edged with fuscous, 

 giving a streaked appearance to the area, the more lateral feathers with 

 the buff more whitish; scapulars and interscapulars as in the adult but 

 the pale bars paler — pinkish buff to cinnamon-buff and the feathers with 

 prominent white shaft streaks ; upper wing coverts and primaries as in 

 the adult, the latter feathers somewhat more pointed; secondaries with 

 the pale bars restricted to their outer webs except on the innermost 

 feathers, the brown areas broader than in the adults and somewhat 

 freckled and vermiculated with blackish ; back, lower back, rump, and 

 upper tail coverts as in adult but more rufescent, the pale tips cinnamon- 

 buff ; rectrices unlike the adult, fuscous to fuscous-black, crossed by seven 

 or eight narrow buffy-whitish to pale pinkish-buff bars and narrowly 

 tipped with the same, these bars largely restricted to the outer webs of 

 the lateral rectrices, the dark interspaces mottled with clay color the size 

 of the patches increasing distally^^ ; lores, supraorbital, and supraauricular 

 band pale pinkish buff to whitish; malar stripe extending below the eye- 

 to, and including, the auriculars, like the top of the head, mixed with 

 fuscous-black posterior to the front end of the eye; lower cheeks, chin. 



" Occasionally erythristic specimens occur, but these do not constitute a "normal" 

 plumage. 



^* The rcctricial pattern is the easiest character by which young TynipaiiJichus 

 may be told from young Pedioecetes. In the latter, the median rectrices have longi- 

 tudinal pale median stripes. 



