224 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



laterally and in front, short, very rigid, and with spinous tips, as if much 

 abraded, some of the feathers with filamentous tips ; stomach membranous. 



Coloration. — Upperparts irregularly variegated with grayish brown, 

 buffy, and black; the tertials with whitish terminal margins and wing 

 coverts with white medial streaks ; under parts mostly whitish, broken 

 by a large black abdominal area. 



Range. — Sagebrush plains of western North America, from north- 

 western North Dakota and Nebraska to middle eastern California, and 

 from northwestern New Mexico to southern Saskatchewan and southern 

 British Columbia. (Monotypic.) 



CENTEOCERCUS UROPHASIANUS (Bonaparte) 



Sage Grouse 



Adult male.- — Narial tufts pale raw umber; feathers of the forehead, 

 crown, and occiput light drab to light wood brown, the feathers crossed 

 by narrow bars of dark clove brown to black, and basally dark olive- 

 brown ; nape ashy tilleul buff narrowly banded with dark buffy brown to 

 olive-brown; interscapulars similar but with the dark bars and the inter- 

 spaces much broader, and the dark bars darker — dark clove brown to black- 

 ish — and with the pale tips and interspaces slightly more ochraceous-buffy, 

 much broader, and the dark bars darker — dark clove brown to blackish — 

 and with the pale tips and interspaces slightly more ochraceous-buffy, 

 the tips more or less vermiculated with blackish; scapulars, lesser upper 

 wing coverts, back, lower back, rump, and upper tail coverts pale ochra- 

 ceous-tawny to tawny-olive with a grayish tinge and with white tips on 

 scapulars and upper wing coverts and ashy gray tips on the feathers of 

 the back, lower back and rump, and upper tail coverts; the feathers 

 vermiculated with black, basally very extensively fuscous-brown to almost 

 black, some of the feathers with subterminal blackish bands, which border 

 proximally on pale pinkish buff ones, which, in turn, also border proxi- 

 mally on black areas; these broad bars rather zigzag in shape and the 

 pale terminal areas extending proximally along the margins of the 

 feathers; inner secondaries like the scapulars; outer secondaries dull 

 olive-brown narrowly tipped with white and transversely flecked with 

 white on their outer webs; primaries plain dull olive-brown, the outer 

 webs with indistinct frecklings of paler; median upper wing coverts 

 similar to the lesser ones but with narrow white shafts and with con- 

 cealed whitish or buffy whitish zigzag bars on their covered central and 

 basal portions, and averaging more grayish, less tawny ; the greater upper 

 wing coverts plain dull olive-brown with merely a hint of white on the 

 shafts ; central tail feathers broad and rather abruptly pointed, dull olive- 

 brown tipped with grayish tilleul buff, and crossed ,by numerous zigzag 

 bands of the same; the dark interspaces broader than the pale bands 

 and the more distal of these interspaces darkening to fuscous and to 



