582 



SYSTEMATIC SYNOPSIS. — GALLINM—ALUCTOBOPODES. 



variegated with blackish-brown, reddish -brown, and grayish-brown, the pattern smallest on the 

 rump and lower back, where the blackish is mostly in sharp-angled stars ; the reddish most con- 

 spicuous on the upper back, and both the lighter colors everywhere finely sprinkled with blackish. 

 Wing-coverts like the upper back, but with numerous conspicuous rounded white spots, one on 

 the end of each feather. Crown and back of neck nearly like the back, but in smaller pattern, and 

 the markings mostly transverse. An illy-defined white area on each side of the neck, over the 

 tympanum, and slight whitish stripe behind the eye. Throat fine light bu£f, usually immac- 

 ulate, but sometimes finely speckled 

 quite across. Under parts white, more 

 or less tinted with buff toward the 

 throat: the breast with numerous regu- 

 lar dark-brown U-shaped spots, one 

 on each feather; similar but smaller, 

 sharper, and fewer such spots thence 

 scattered over most of the under parts, 

 only the middle of the belly being left 

 unmarked. Long feathers of the sides 

 under the wings matching the upper 

 wing-covertsi nearly ; under wing-cov- 

 erts and axillaries pure white, not 

 marked; fianks with bars or U-spots 

 of dark brown. Legs grayish-white, 

 unmarked. Quills of the wings fus- 

 cous; outer webs of the secondaries 

 with equidistant, squarish, white or 

 tawny spots, the secondaries tipped 

 and imperfectly twice or thrice barred 

 with white, and gradually becoming 

 sprinkled with the varied colors of the 

 back, so that the innermost of them are 

 almost precisely like the greater coverts. Four middle tail-feathers variegated, much like the 

 back ; others white, or grayish-white, on the inner webs, the outer webs being mottled ; a few 

 under tail-coverts spotted, the rest white ; upper tail-coverts nearly like the rump. Iris light 

 brown ; bill dark horn-color ; part of under mandible fiesh-colored ; claws like bill ; toes on 

 top light horn-color, the soles darker. Length, 18 or 30 inches; extent 24 to -30; wing 

 8 to 9; middle tail-feathers 4 to 6 ; shortest tail-feathers (outeimost), about li; tarsi, 

 2 inches; middle toe and claw about the same; culmen of bill about f ; gape of bill 1 to 11; 

 depth of bill at base i or rather less. PuUets, before first moult : Crown bright brown, varied 

 with black. Sharp white shaft-lines above, which, with a black area on each feather, contrast 

 with the fine gray and brown mottling of the upper parts. Wing-coverts and inner quills 

 with whitish spots. Several inner tail-feathers with whitish shaft lines, and mottled with 

 blackish and brown. Lower throat and breast with numerous dark brown spots; sides 

 similar, the markings lengthening into streaks. Bill brown above, pale below. This lasts 

 till the September moult is completed. Chicks hatch dingy yellow, mottled on the crown, 

 back, and wings with brown and black. The Pin-tail Chicken inhabits the western portions of 

 Minnesota, a small part of Iowa, aU of Dakota, thence diagonally across Nebraska and Kansas 

 to Colorado in the Laramie and upper Platte regions ; thence westward in suitable country to 

 the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges ; northern limit to be conventionally established along 

 the N. border of the U. S., beyond which it shades into the true phctsianellus. In fine, this is 

 the prairie chicken of the whole Northwest ; usually occurring where C. cupido does not, the two 



Fig. 398. — Head of Sharp-tailed Grouse, nat. 

 nat. del. E. C.) 



