I 39S 



bring them under the same species, for it is 

 known that the males of all the grous tril>e, 

 and indeed of most of the gallinaceous birds, 

 are used to strut in a very stately manner, and 

 that the colours of their plumage are much 

 more distinct than those of the females. Hut 

 the specific difference alone, which Linneus 

 assigns to the cock of the wood, absolutely 

 excludes our Hudson's Bay species ; he calls 

 it Tetrao pedibus hirsutis, cauda rotundata, 

 axillis albis. Whoever examines Mr. Ed- 

 wards's figure, and the specimens now in the 

 Society's possession, will find the tail very 

 short, but pointed, the two middle feathers 

 being half an inch longer than the rest, (Mr. 

 Edwards says two inches) and the axillae, or 

 shoulders, by no means white : besides this 

 difference, the colour and size of the Hud- 

 son's Bay bird are likewise vastly different 

 from those of the cock of the wood. Its length 

 is 17 inches, its breadth 24, and, as Mr. 

 Edwards justly says, it is somewhat bigger 

 than the common pheasant. The great cock 

 of the wood is as big as a turky ; and 

 its female, which is much less, however 

 far exceeds our bird, it being 26 inches long, 

 and 40 broad. See British Zool. octavo, 

 p. 200. The figures given of the fe- 

 male of the T. Urogallus, or great cock of 

 the wood, in the Br. Zool. folio, plate M"", 

 and the Planche enluminee" 75, will serve 

 upon comparison as a convincing proof of 

 the vast difference there is between the Hud- 

 son's Bay pheasant grous and the European cock 

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