312 SPOTTED GROUSE. 



tinued along the shaft, and spreading at the point ; but the feathers 

 being small on these parts, the white spots are not very conspicuous. 

 The breast also is deep black, but each feather broadly tipped with pure 

 white, constituting the large spots by which this species is so peculiarly 

 distinguished. On the flanks, the feathers are at first from their base 

 waved with black and grayish rusty crescents, but these become gradu- 

 ally less pure and defined, and by getting confused, make the lowest 

 appear mottled with the two colors ; all are marked along the shaft with 

 white, dilating at tip, forming on the largest a conspicuous terminal 

 spot. The vent is for a space pure white, the tips of its downy feathers 

 being of that color : the under tail-coverts are deep black, pure white 

 for half an inch at their tip, and with a white mark along the shaft 

 besides. The wings are seven inches long, the fourth primary alone 

 being somewhat longer than the rest. The upper coverts and scapu- 

 laries are blackish, waved and mottled with grayish rusty ; the longest 

 scapularies have a small terminal spot of pure white along their shaft. 

 The smaller coverts are merely edged with grayish rusty, and in very 

 perfect specimens they are even plain ; the under wing-coverts are 

 brownish dusky, edged with grayish, some of the largest, as well as the 

 long axillary feathers, having white shafts dilating into a terminal spot ; 

 the remaining inferior surface of the wing is bright silvery gray : the 

 spurious wing and the quills are plain dusky brown, the secondaries 

 being slightly tipped and edged externally with paler, and those nearest 

 the body somewhat mottled with grayish rusty at the point and on the 

 inner vane ; the primaries, with the exception of the first, are slightly 

 marked with whitish gray on their outer edge, but are entirely destitute 

 of white spots. The tail is six inches long, well rounded, and composed 

 of only sixteen feathers. These are black, with a slight sprinkling of 

 bright reddish on the outer web at base, under the coverts, which dis- 

 appears almost entirely with age ; all are bright dark rusty for half an 

 inch at their tip, this color itself being finely edged and shafted with 

 black. The tarsus measures an inch and a half, its feathers, together 

 with the femorals, are dingy gray, slightly waved with dusky ; the toes 

 are dusky ; the lateral scales dingy whitish, and the nails blackish. 



The female is smaller than the male, being more than an inch shorter. 

 The general plumage is much more varied, with less of black, but much 

 more of rusty. There is a tinge of rufous on the feathers of the nos- 

 trils. Those of the head, neck, and upper part of the back, are black, 

 with two or three bright bands of orange rusty, and tipped with gray ; 

 there is more of the gray tint on the neck, on the lower part of which 

 above, the orange bands are broader ; all the remaining parts of the 

 body above, including the tail-coverts, are more confusedly banded and 

 mottled with duller rusty, orange, and gray, on a blackish ground, these 

 colors themselves being also sprinkled with a little black. The sides 



