9oa 



GAME BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA. 



I 



of the forests, and are found only in the western portions of 

 North America amid the high mountain ranges. By having dis- 

 tensible sacs of bare skin upon the sides of the neck, and a tail 

 consisting of twenty broad feathers, these birds cannot properly 

 be included in the same genus with the Spruce Grouse, C. cana- 

 densis and C.franklini, which have no air sacs, and only sixteen 

 rectrices in the tail. These characters are in my opinion strictly 

 generic and too important and conspicuous to permit the two 

 groups to be separated only subgenerically, but are as striking 

 and trenchant as any that separate these birds themselves from 

 those in other genera of the subfamily. 



KEY TO THE SPECIES. 



A. Under parts of adult males, mostly slate 

 color. 

 a. Tail with distinct gray band at tip. 

 a' . General colors, light. Tail band very \ dusky grouse. 

 broad. \ D. obscurus. 



b\ General colors, dark, almost black. ) ^^^"^^ grouse. 



Tail band narrow. \ ^' ^- Z^^'^" 



) nosus. 



b. Tail without band at tip. 



RICHARDSON S 

 GROUSE. 



D. o. richard- 

 soni. 



GENUS CANACHITES 



(Greek, icaraxew, kanacheo, to be noisy). 



Canachites, Stejn. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus,, vol. viii., 1885, p. 410. 

 Type, Tetrao canadensis, Linn. 



Head without crest. Tail moderately long, nearly square at 

 tip, composed of sixteen feathers. No air sacs on sides of neck. 

 Toes naked, scaly, and fringed along the sides. Size small. 



Two species only are included in this genus, the common 

 Spruce or Canada Grouse, and Franklin's Grouse, the latter 

 dwelling on the high mountain ranges of the western side of 

 North America. They are quite different in their pattern of 

 coloration, and the males are characteristically marked and 

 easily distinguishable. ^ 



