412 DR. EINAR LONNBERG ON [Mar. 1, 



a small peasant village, Rasvik, situated in the country parish of 

 Pitea, Government district of Norrbotten, thus not far from the 

 town mentioned. The another bird of these Riporre specimens 

 was, undoubtedly, a hen of Lyrivrus tetrix. She had laid and 

 afterwards hatched her eggs near a peasant's house in a small 

 hamlet, consequently the hen and her six chickens were observed 

 almost every day during the summer and autumn of 1901. 

 As soon as the birds got scai-ed they perched in trees as the 

 Black Game does, unlike the Willow- Grouse. When full-grown 

 they were shot, all of them the same autumn. The first four 

 were sold to an innkeeper in the town of Lutea, who, not 

 recognising their hybrid nature, had them plucked and eaten. 

 The last two, however, luckily fell into the hands of Dr. Bjorkbom, 

 who took care of them and had them mounted. Both these 

 specimens are males shot in the month of October, the one a 

 little earlier than the other, so that it was still in moult and 

 retained some of the feathers of the autumn plumage. These 

 feathers are situated in such a manner that they form a patch 

 behind the eye and on the sides of the occiput, and a broad band on 

 the sides of the lower neck, extending with some scattered feathers 

 on the fore-neck, and are almost exactly like those in the corre- 

 sponding situation of a young Blackcock just moulting to assume 

 its first black plumage. They are thus barred with light bufi" 

 and brownish black, the bars being, however, at least partly, a 

 little narrower in the Riporre than in the young Blackcock. 

 There is thus no trace of the rufous of the Willow- Grouse in these 

 feathers. A few scattered scapulars, which are mixed bufi" and 

 black, have an appearance which may be termed intermediate 

 between that of the corresponding ones of Lyrurus tetrix $ and 

 that of Lagojnts lagopus $ , and difiers from that of the males of both 

 species. With regard to the pattern, the axillaries of this Riporre 

 specimen approach perhaps more those of the female Willow- 

 Grouse than those of the Grey-hen. With the exception of these 

 feathers, almost every feather of the whole plumage of both 

 Riporre specimens is either more or less white, or is, with 

 slight modifications, like that of an immature Blackcock, The 

 description of the Riporre cock in winter plumage which Oollett 

 has given * is quite correct for these specimens too, and need not 

 be repeated. 



An analysis of the plumage, however, may not be without 

 intei-est. The white must, of course, be regarded as an 

 inheritance from the Willow- Grouse father, except in such 

 places where the Blackcock as well is normally white, as on the 

 under tail-coverts, on the wing, &c. The whole upper surface of 

 the Riporre is, with only slight modification, derived from the 

 Blackcock, and this modification consists only in the fact that the 

 fine brown sprinklings and vei-miculations on the feathers of the 

 Blackcock (immature or in summer plumage) in the Riporre are 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. 1886, p. 224. 



