DUSKY GROUSE. 297 



habits, that he might with almost the same propriety have included in 

 it all typical gallinaceous birds. Latham very judiciously separated the 

 genus Tmamus, as well as that of Perdix, which latter he restored 

 from Brisson. Illiccer likewise contributed to our better knowledge of 

 these birds by characterizing two more natural genera, Syrrhaptes and 

 Ortygis. Temminck, in his Histoire des Crallinaees, carried the number 

 to seven, but has since reduced it by reuniting Coturnix to Perdix. 



The true Tetraones are divided by Vieillot into two genera, the 

 Lagopodes forming a distinct one by themselves. These however wc 

 regard as no more than a subgenus, of which we distinguish three in 

 our genus Tetrao. I. Lagopus, which represents it in the Arctic Polar 

 -regions ; for whose climate they are admirably adapted by being clothed 

 to the very nails in plumage suited to the temperature, furnished 

 abundantly with thick down, upon which the feathers are closely applied. 

 The color of their winter plumage is an additional protection against 

 rapacious animals, by rendering it difficult to distinguish them from the 

 snows by which they are surrounded. II. Tetrao, which is distributed 

 over the more temperate climates ; the legs being still feathered down 

 to the toes. III. Bonasia, a new division, of which we propose Tetrao 

 bonasia, L. as the type, in which only the upper portion of the tarsus is 

 feathered. These occasionally descend still farther south than the 

 others, inhabiting wooded plains as well as mountainous regions, to 

 which those of the second section are more particularly attached. But 

 the entire genus is exclusively boreal, being only found in Europe and 

 the northern countries of America and Asia. The long and sharp- 

 winged Grouse, or Pterocles of Temminck, which represent, or rather 

 replace these birds in the arid and sandy countries of Africa and Asia, 

 a single species inhabiting also the southern extremity of Europe, we 

 consider, in common with all modern authors, as a totally distinct genus. 

 That group, composed of but few species, resort to the most desert 

 regions, preferring dry and burning wastes to the cool shelter of the 

 woods. These oceans, as they might be termed, of sand, so terrific to 

 the eye and the imagination of the human traveller, they boldly venture 

 to cross in large companies in search of the fluid so indispensable to 

 life, but there so scarce, and only found in certain spots. Over the 

 intervening spaces they pass with extraordinary rapidity, and at a great 

 elevation, being the only gallinaceous birds furnished with wings of i\\Q 

 form required for such flights. This however is not the only peculiarity 

 in which they aberrate from the rest of their order, and approach the 

 Pigeons, being said to lay but few eggs, the young remaining in the nest 

 until they are full-fledged, and fed in the mean time by the parents. . 



The Grouse dwell in forests, especially such as are deep, and situated 

 in mountainous districts ; the Bonasice however, and the Tetrao cupido, 

 frequenting plains where grow trees of various kinds. The Lagopodes 



