DUSKY GROUS. 447 
of the largest of our males is scarcely so long; while the biggest of 
our females, measuring twenty-one inches in total length, has a wing 
barely eight inches long. This, perhaps, merely indicates the uncer- 
tainty of measurements taken from prepared specimens. Mr Douc- 
Las’s specimens in the Edinburgh Museum are of younger birds than 
ours, but evidently the same species.” These remarks correspond 
with what I have so often repeated, that age, sex, and different states 
of moult, produce disparities in individuals of the same species. 
Dr Townsenp, in the notes with which he has favoured me, has the 
following observations :—‘“‘ Dusky Grous, Tetrao obscurus. Qul-al-lalleun 
of the Chinooks. First found in the Blue Mountains, near Wallah 
Wallah, in large flocks, in September. Keep in pine woods altogether, 
never found on the plains; they perch on the trees. Afterwards found 
on the Columbia River in pairs in May. The eggs are numerous, of a 
cinereous brown colour, blunt at both ends, and small for the size of 
the bird. The actions of the female, when the young are following her, 
are precisely the same as the Ruffed Grous, using all the arts of that 
bird in counterfeiting lameness, &c. Female smaller than the male, 
- lighter coloured, and wants the yellow warty skin upon the sides of the 
neck.” 
Mr Norratt’s notice is as follows :—“ ‘The Dusky Grous breeds 
in the shady forests of the Columbia, where we heard and saw them 
throughout the summer. The male at various times of the day makes 
a curious uncouth tooting, almost like the sound made by blowing into 
the bung-hole of a barrell, b00 wh’h, wh'h, wh'h, wih, the last note de- 
scending into a kind of echo.’ We frequently tried to steal on the per- 
former, but without success, as, in fact, the sound is so strangely mana- 
ged that you may imagine it to come from the left or right indifferently. 
They breed on the ground, as usual, and the brood keep together nearly 
all winter. The Ruffed Grous also breeds here commonly, and I one 
day found the nest concealed near a fallen log, but it was at once for- 
saken after this intrusion, though I did not touch the eggs.” 
From the examination of specimens in my possession, I am _per- 
suaded that this species, like Tetrao Cupido, has the means of inflating 
the sacs of bare skin on the sides of the neck, by means of which, in 
the breeding season, are produced the curious sounds above described. 
