306 SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 



white, with a small black spot on each side, giving these parts a dotted 

 appearance, but the dots fewer and smaller on the throat. The feathers 

 of the back and rump are black, transversely varied on the margin and 

 at tip with pale bright rusty sprinkled with black, forming a confused 

 mixture of black and rusty on the whole upper parts of the bird ; the 

 long loose-webbed upper tail-coverts being similar, but decidedly and 

 almost regularly banded with black and sprinkled with rusty, this color 

 being there much lighter and approaching to white, and even constitut- 

 ing the ground color. The breast is brown, approaching chocolate, each 

 feather being terminated by a white fringe, with a large arrow-shaped 

 spot of that color on the middle of each feather, so that when the plum 

 age lies close the feathers appear white with black crescents, and are 

 generally described so. On the lower portion of the breast the white 

 spots as they descend become longer and narrower, the branches form- 

 ing the angle coming closer and closer to each other till the spot 

 becomes a mere white streak along the shaft, but at the same time the 

 white marginal fringe widens so considerably that the feathers of the 

 belly may be properly called white, being brown only at their base, but 

 the shaft is white even there, with no more than a brown heart-shaped 

 spot visible on the middle. The heart-shaped brown spots of the belly 

 become so very small at the vent, that this part appears pure white 

 with a few very small blackish spots : the long flank feathers are broadly 

 banded with black and white, somewhat tinged with ochraceous exte- 

 riorly ; the under tail-coverts are white, blackish along the shafts, and 

 more or less varied with black in different specimens, which also vary 

 considerably as to the size and shape of all the spots, being in some more 

 acute, in others more rounded, &c. The wings are eight inches long, 

 the third and fourth primaries being the longest ; the scapulars are uni- 

 form with the back, but besides the rusty sprinkling of the margins and 

 tip, the largest have narrow band-like spots of a pure bright rufous, a 

 slight whitish streak along the shaft in the centre, and a large white 

 spot at the end. The smaller wing-coverts are plain chocolate brown ; 

 the spurious wing, and outer coverts, are of the same brown, but each 

 feather bears at the point a large and very conspicuous pure white 

 ."pot ; all the other superior coverts are blackish, sprinkled and banded 

 with rusty, each furnished with a conspicuous terminal spot ; the under 

 wing-coverts, together with the long axillary feathers, are pure white, 

 each with a single small dusky spot, and are marbled with white and 

 brownish on the outer margin ; the quills are plain dusky brown, the 

 primaries being regularly marked with pure white spots half an inch 

 apart on their outer webs, except at the point of the first ; the longest 

 feather of the spurious wing, and the larger outer coverts have also a 

 pair of these spots : the secondaries, besides the outer spots, which 

 assume the appearance of bands, are tipped with pure white, forming 



