308 SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 



feathers of the tail are more or less elongated, in young birds scarcely 

 exceeding the adjoining by half an inch. 



The spring plumage is much more bright and glossy than the 

 autumnal, and also exhibits diflFerences in the spots and markings. 

 The specimen we have selected for our plate, on account of its being 

 the only one Ave had from the United States territory, is a female in 

 ihe autumnal dress, and was brought from the Rocky Mountains. 

 We think proper to insert here in detail the description we took from 

 it at the time, thus enabling the reader to contrast it with that made 

 from a Northern specimen in spring plumage, rather than point out 

 each and all the numerous and at the same time minute and unim- 

 portant variations. 



The female represented in the figure was fifteen inches long. Its 

 general color mottled with black and yellowish rufous : the feathers 

 of the head above are yellowish rufous banded with black, the shaft 

 yellowish : a line above the eye, the cheeks, and the throat, are pure 

 yellowish rusty with very few blackish dots, and a band of the latter 

 color from the bill beneath the eye and spreading behind. All the 

 lower parts are whitish cream, with a yellowish rusty tinge ; each 

 feather of the neck and breast with a broad blackish subterminal 

 margin in the shape of a crescent, becoming more and more narrow 

 and acute as they are lower down on the belly, until the lowest : re 

 reduced to a mere black mark in the middle ; the lower tail-coverts 

 and the femorals are entirely destitute of black. All the upper parts, 

 viz., the back, rump, upper tail-coverts, and scapulars, have a uniform 

 mottled appearance of black and rusty, each feather being black with 

 rusty shafts, spots, bands, or margins, the rusty again minutely dotted 

 Avith black : on the rump, but especially on the tail-coverts, the rusty 

 predominates in such a manner that each feather becomes first banded 

 with black and rusty, then decidedly rusty varied with black, which 

 however does not change in the least the general eifect. The wing- 

 coverts are dusky, each with a large round white spot at tip, the inner 

 gradually taking the markings of the back and scapulars ; the lining 

 of the shoulder is plain dusky, as well as the spurious wing and the 

 primaries, each feather of the spurious wing having about five large 

 round spots of white on its outer web ; the primaries are regularly 

 marked on the same side with eight or ten squarish equidistant white 

 spots, with a few inconspicuous whitish dots on their inner web besides ; 

 the secondaries are also dusky, but in them the spots take the appear- 

 ance of bands continued across the whole feather, of which bands there 

 are three or four, including the terminal ; the inner secondaries become 

 darker and darker as they approach the body, the Avhite becomes rufous, 

 the dots are more frequent, and they become confounded with the scap- 

 ulars, and are banded and mottled with various tints of black and 



