336 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1772. 



knot, but a ferruginous one is much less, and has brighter colours. M. de 

 Buffon however thinks they are the same, and suspects at the same time, that 

 the bird which he calls la grosse gelinotte du Canada, and which is the same 

 with the Society's specimens, is the female of Mr. Edwards's bird, t. 248. This 

 conjecture is destroyed by the specimens now sent from Hudson's Bay, which by 

 the accounts from thence are expressly said to be males. The shoulder-knot 

 grouses bear the Indian name of puskee, or puspuskee, at Hudson's Bay, on 

 account of the leanness and dryness of their flesh, which is extremely white, and 

 of a very close texture, but when well prepared is excellent eating. They are 

 pretty common at Moose Fort, Henly House, but are seldom seen at Albany- 

 Fort, or to the northward of the above places. In winter they feed on juniper 

 tops, in summer on gooseberries, raspberries, currants, &c. They are not mi- 

 gratory, staying all the year at Moose Fort; they build their nests on dry ground, 

 liatch 9 young at a time, to which the mother clucks, as our common hen does; 

 and on the least appearance of danger, or in order to enjoy a comfortable degree 

 of warmth, the young ones retire under the wings of their parent, n. b. A spe- 

 cimen, which is supposed to be either a young bird or a female, wants the bluish 

 black shoulder-knot; but it is the same in all other respects. 



Tetrao, 18. Phasianellus. Linn. Syst. Nat. Ed. x. p. l6o. n. 5. Edw. II7. 

 Longtailed grous. Faun. Am. Septentr. 10. Severn river, N° 6 and 7. Al- 

 bany Fort, N" 3. 



This bird, which Mr. Edwards has drawn plate I17, was by Linneus, in the 

 10th edition of his System, ranged as a new species of grous or tetrao, by the 

 specific name of phasianellus, alluding to the name of pheasant which it bears at 

 Hudson's Bay, and likewise to its pointed tail. He afterwards, in the new or 

 12th edition of the System, p. 273, makes it a variety of the great cock of the 

 wood, or tetrao urogallus, probably from the account in Mr. Edwards, that the 

 male struts very upright, is in general of a darker colour than the female, and 

 has a glossy neck. These circumstances however are not sufficient to bring 

 them under the same species, for it is known that the males of all the grous 

 tribe, 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. But the specific difference alone, which Liimseus as- 

 signs 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. Edwards'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 2 inches) and the axillae, or shoulders, 

 by no means white : besides this difference, the colour and size of the Hudson's 

 Bay bird are likewise vastly different from those of the cock of the wood. Its 



