UPLAND SHOOTING. 51 



the side of the throat. Membrane above the eye scarlet. Bare 

 skin of the sounding bladder orange. The longest feathers of 

 the neck tufts are dark brown on the outer webs, pale yellowish 

 red and margined with dusky on the inner, excepting the low- 

 est, which are all brownish black. The lower parts are marked 

 with large transverse curved bands of grayish brown and pale 

 yellowish gray, the tints deeper on the anterior parts and under 

 the wings. Under tail coverts arranged in three sets, the mid- 

 dle feathers convex, involute, white, with two concealed brown 

 spots ; the lateral larger, of the same form, abrupt, variegated 

 with dusky red and white, the extremity of the latter color, but 

 with a very narrow terminal margin of black. The tibial and 

 tarsal feathers are gray, obscurely and minutely banded with 

 yellowish brown. 



"Length IS inches ; extent of wings, 27?.; bill along the 

 back, T2 ; along the edge, \\ ; tarsus, lo ; weight, lib. 13oz. 



" Adult female. 



" The female is considerably smaller than the male, and wants 

 the crest, neck-tufts and air-bags, but in other respects resembles 

 him." — Audubon''s Birds of America. 



Attagen Americana, Brissot, 1, p. 59 — Pinnated Heath-Cock, 

 Bonnasa Cupido, Steph. Sh. cont. 11, p. 299 — Tetrao Cupido, 

 Bonap. Synop, p. 126. 



" Before I enter on a detail of the observations which I have 

 myself personally made on this singular species, I shall lay be- 

 fore the reader a comprehensive and very circumstantial memoir 

 on the subject, communicated to me by the writer, Dr. Samuel 

 L. Mitchill, of New York, whose exertions both in his public 

 and private capacity, in behalf of science, and in elucidating the 

 natural history of his country, are well known and highly honor- 

 able to his distinguished situation and abilities. That peculiar 

 tract, generally known by the name of the Brushy Plains of Long 

 Island, having been from time immemorial the resort of t^ie bird 

 now before us, some account of this particular range of country 

 seemed necessarily connected with the subject, and has accord- 

 ingly been obligingly attended to by the learno-1 P/o'e-iSur : 



