628 U. S. p. K. R. EXP. AND SURVEYS — ZOOLOGY — GENERAL REPORT. 



CUPIDONIA CUPIDO, Baird. 



Prairie Hen ; Prairie Chicken ; Pinnated Grouse. 



Tetrao cvpido, Linn. Syst. Nat. 1, 1766, 274 —Gm. I, 751.— Lath. Ind. Orn. II, 1790.— Wilson, Am. Orii. Ill, 1811, 

 104, pi. xxvii —Bon. Obs. Wils. 1895, No. 183.— Is. Mon. Tetrao, Am. Phil. Trans. Ill, 1830, 392.— 

 NuTTALL, Man. I, 662.— Ano. Cm. Biog. II, ]834, 490: V, 1839, 559 ; pi. 186.— Ib. Birds Amer. 

 V, 1842, 93 ; pi. 296.— Koch, Wiegmann's Arcliiv, 1836, i, 159. 



Bonasa cupido, Stephens, Shaw's Gen. Zool. XI, 299. 



Cupidenia americana, Reich. Av. Syst. Nat. 1850, p. xxix. — Bonap. Comptes Rendus, XLV, 1857, 428. 



Sp. Ch. — Tail of eighteen feathers. Varied witli whitish brown, and brownish yellow. Almost everywhere with well defined 

 transverse bars of brown on the feathers. Length, 16.50 inches ; wing, 8.80 ; tail, 4.70. 



Hab. — Western prairies and plains within the limits of the United States, east of Roeky mountains ; southeast to Calcasieu, 

 Louisiana ; east to Pocono mountains, Pennsylvania; Long Island, and eastern coast. 



Body stout, compact. A tuft of long pointed lanceolate feathers on each side of the neck, 

 covering a bare space capable of much inflation. Tail short, truncate, much graduated, 

 composed of eighteen feathers ; the lateral feathers about two-thirds the middle ; the feathers 

 stiffened, nearly linear and truncate. The tail is scarcely longer than the coverts, and about 

 half the length of the wing. Tarsi covered with feathers anteriorly and laterally to the toes, 

 but bare, with hexagonal scutellae behind. The middle toe and claw longer than the tarsus ; 

 the toes margined by pectinated processes. A space above the eye provided with a dense pecti- 

 nated process in the breeding season ; sometimes separated from the eye by a superciliary space 

 covered with feathers. 



Bands on the body transverse throughout. Lanceolate feathers of the throat black ; the 

 upper ones with a central yellowish stripe. Eyelids and a stripe from the nostril alongside the 

 head, (interrupted above the eye,) brownish yellow ; the sides of the head below a dusky infra- 

 ocular stripe, with the chin and throat above, similar. Feathers of the body above and below 

 brown, with a terminal and two transverse bands of well defined white; the brown almost 

 black and the white tinged with rufous above. The scapular feathers sometimes showing more 

 black. Wings banded like the back ; the primaries grayish brown, marked only on the outer 

 webs with light spots ; the shafts black. Tail feathers sometimes uniform brown ; sometimes 

 with rufous transverse bars. Under coverts marked like the back, with more white ; sometimes 

 (10006) entirely white. The membrane above the eye said to be scarlet, that of the sounding 

 bladder dusky orange. 



The female lacks the pectinations of the space above the eye, and has but a short cervical tuft 

 and naked space, but is similar in general markings. 



There is considerable variation in the colors of difi'erent specimens. In most cases there is an 

 elongated dusky spot on the side of the lower jaw, separated from the dusky infra-orbital streak. 

 Sometimes the colors are much darker. Texas specimens have the back more finely and 

 uniformly barred, without any of the dorsal black spaces. 



A summer skin, from Calcasieu, Louisiana, has the tarsal feathers much reduced ; and the 

 tarsus bare all round for about half an inch from the toes. 



The range of this species was once much wider than at the preseut time. It scarcely seems to 

 occur north of the United States line, nor, perhaps, beyond the beginning of the High Central 

 Plains. Eastward it probably was once abundant through the open country to the Atlantic 



