BIRDS TETRAONIDAE TETRAO FRANKLINII. 



623 



List of specimens. 



TETRAO FRANKLINII, Douglas. 



Franklin's Grouse. 



Telraofranklinii, Douglas, Trans. Linn. See. XVI, 1829, 139.— Rich. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 348 ; pi. l.xi. 

 Tetrao canadensis, var. Bonap. Am. Orn. Ill, 1830, 47 ; pi. xx. 



? Telrao fusca, Ord, Guthrie's Geog. 2d Am. ed. II, 1815, 317. Based on small brown plicaaant of Lewis & Clark, 

 II, 182, which very probably is this speciej. 



Sp. Cii — Similar to T. canade^isis, but witli tlie tail feathers entirely black, without orange brown terminal band ; the upper 

 tail coverts broadly tipped with white. Wing, 7.35 ; tail, 5.62. 

 Hab. — Northern Rocky mountains, and west. 



The only specimens of this species before me are so much mutilated as to preclude any 

 accurate description. The difference from canadensis, however, even in these, is sufficiently 

 appreciable. This consists chiefly in the rather longer tail with broader feathers, which are pure 

 black instead of very dark brown, and entirely without the orange terminal band. The white 

 streaks on the scapulars are larger terminally and much more conspicuous, and the upper tail 

 coverts are conspicuously barred terminally with white, not seen in the other. The female 

 differs from that of canadensis in the white bars at the ends of the tail coverts, and in having 

 the tail feathers tipped with whitish instead of orange brown. 



The male of this bird is described and figured by Bonaparte as that of the Canada grouse, 

 T. canadensis. 



Middendorff, in his Sibirische Reise, speaks of a grouse as occurring on the southern shores of 

 the Sea of Ochotsk, which he considered the same as the North American Tetrao franklini. 

 Hartlaub, however, naturally disbelieving a statement so much at variance with what had been 

 found to be the law in the distribution of the Gallinacea, made special efforts to procure 

 specimens, and, on comparing them with skins of the American T. canadensis and description 

 of T. franklini, found that there was a very great difference in the primaries of the Siberian 

 bird, to which, in consequence, he gave the name of T. falcipennis. In this the outer five 

 primaries are emarginate internally and greatly falcate ; the second and third most so, a 

 character scarcely found elsewhere among Gallinacea, except in Penelope. There are many 

 differences in color, such as the upper parts being black, spotted finely with brown, and the 

 shafts streaked with lighter in falcipennis, instead of plain gray banded with black. Other 

 differences might readily be indicated, but those just mentioned are quite sufiicient to 

 substantiate Dr. Hartlaub's position. 



