Fig. 5. Male (standing) and female Canada spruce grouse (Canachiies c. canact). By the author after Fuertes. 



tipped. There are 16 feathers in the black 

 taU which is slightly rounded, each feather 

 being uniformly nearly an inch wide. Distally 

 they are tipped with brownish orange, 

 the feathers of the upper coverts being 

 occasionally bordered with gray, often ex- 

 tending on to the edges for a little distance. 



The legs (tarsi) are fully feathered to the 

 toes, the latter being naked, covered with 

 scales, and each fringed with a comb-like 

 growth which is shed and reproduced during 

 the moult. 



An old male of this species, in the breeding 

 season, appears to one as a black bird, 

 grayish above, white-spotted beneath, and a 

 black tail with reddish-brown ends to its 

 feathers. Total length averages from 15 to 

 17 inches; a wing 7, and the tail 5? inches, 

 the smaller measurements being for the 

 female bird. In the latter, the black is not 

 continuous beneath as in the cock, being 

 replaced by tan and white, especially on the 

 breast, with white streaks on the flanks. 

 In fact, the hen of this species is more or 

 less barred elsewhere with fine, wavy mark- 

 ings of dull black, giving the tout ensemble of 

 the plumage a very different appearance 

 from the male. On the upper part, she 

 more resembles the cock bird, but is browner, 

 the ends of the tail feathers more narrowly 

 edged with brownish-orange, with all of the 

 feathers more or less banded with buffy 



ochre, which bars, or bands, are said to 

 disappear gradually as the bird ages. Sub- 

 adults resemble the females, while the chicks 

 look like those of the ptarmigans with 

 unfeathered toes. 



Students of our grouse will find them 

 much mixed up in the literature on the 

 subject; as for example, Ridgway, in his 

 Manual of North American Birds, bunches 

 together the genera Dendragapus and Cana- 

 chites, including them all in the former 

 genus. Audubon, however, was far less to 

 be trusted in this matter, for to him all 

 "spruce grouse" looked alike. In his descrip- 

 tion of the Canada grouse (Canachites cana- 

 densis), which, under the rule of those days 

 he placed in Tetrao, he says in the fifth 

 volume of his great work "According to 

 Dr. Richardson, all the thick and swampy 

 black-spruce forests between Canada and 

 the Arctic Sea abound with this bird, and 

 considerable numbers exist in the severest 

 seasons as high as the 67th parallel. I am 

 informed by Mr. Townsend that it is also 

 plentiful on the Rocky Mountains and the 

 plains of the Columbia, from which parts I 

 have obtained specimens differing in nothing 

 from others procured in Maine and Labrador. 

 I have also compared those in the Edin- 

 burgh Museum, which Mr. Douglas was 

 pleased to name Tetrao Franklinii, with 

 several of my own, and feel perfectly conn- 



