TETRAONID^ — THE GROUSE. 447 



Prevailing color bright ochraceous-rufous ; tail always rufous in the 

 Middle and Southern States, occasionally gray on the Alleghany Moun- 

 tains, and in New England States ; usually gray in Eastern British 

 America. Hub. Eastern Province of North America . var. umb ellus , 



Prevailing color bluish-ashy ; tail always pale ash. Ilab. Rocky 

 Mountains of United States, and interior regions of British America, 

 to the Yukon var. umb elloides. 



Prevailing color dark ferruginous ; tail always dark ferruginous near 

 the coast, occasionally dark gray in mountainous regions. Hab. North- 

 west coast region (Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, etc.) var. sabini. 



The above synopsis is intended to present in the simplest form the charac- 

 teristic features of the three definable races of this exceedingly variable 

 species, as exhibited in a light rusty rufous-tailed form of the Atlantic 

 States, a pale gray ashy-tailed form of the Eocky Mountains of the United 

 States and British America, and a dark rusty rufous-tailed form of the 

 northwest coast region. These three, when based on specimens from the 

 regions where their characters are most exaggerated and uniform, appear 

 sufficiently distinct ; but when we find that specimens from the New Eng- 

 land States have the rufous bodies of umbellus and gray tails of ■uonbelloides, 

 and that examples from Eastern Oregon and Washington Territory have the 

 dark rusty bodies of sahini and gray tails of umbclloides, and continue to 

 see that the transition between any two of the three forms is gradual with 

 the locality, we are unavoidably led to the conclusion that they are merely 

 geographical modifications of one species. The continuity of the dark sub- 

 terminal tail-band in umhellus, and its interruption in umhelloidcs, — charac- 

 ters on which great stress is laid by Mr. Elliot in his monograph, above cited, 

 — we find to be contradicted by the large series which we have examined ; 

 neither condition seems to be the rule in either race, but the character 

 proves to be utterly unreliable. 



In the less elevated and more southern portions of the Eastern Province 

 of the United States, as in the Mississippi Valley and the States bordering 

 the Gulf and South Atlantic, the rufous type is prevalent; the tail being 

 always, so far as the specimens we have seen indicate, of an ochraceous- 

 rufous tint. Specimens with gray tails first occur on the Alleghany Moun- 

 tains, and become more common in the New England States, the specimens 

 from Maine having nearly all gray tails. Specimens from Labrador approach 

 still nearer the var. umbelloides, — the extreme gray condition, — and agree 

 with Alaskan specimens in having more brown than those from the interior 

 portions of British America or the Eocky Mountains of the United States. 

 More northern specimens of the inland form have, again, a greater amount 

 of white than those from the south or coastward. Passing southward from 

 Alaska toward Oregon, specimens become darker, until, in the dense humid 

 forests of the region of the Columbia, a very dark plumage, with little or no 

 gray, prevails, most similar to, but even more reddish and much darker, than 

 the style of the Southern States of the Eastern Province. Passing from the 



