370 DUSKY GROUSE. 
If. Zetrao, which is distributed over the more temperate cli- 
mates; the legs being still feathered down to the toes. III. 
Bonasia, a new division, of which we propose Tetrao bonasia, 
L., as the type, in which only the upper portion of the tarsus 
is feathered. These occasionally descend still farther south 
than the others, inhabiting wooded plains as well as mountain- 
ous regions, to which those of the second section are more par- 
ticularly attached. But the entire genus is exclusively boreal, 
being only found in Europe, and the northern countries of 
America and Asia. The long and sharp-winged grouse, or 
Pterocles of Temminck, which represent, or rather replace, 
these birds in the arid and sandy countries of Africa and Asia, 
a single species inhabiting also the southern extremity of 
Europe, we consider, in common with all modern authors, as 
a totally distinct genus. ‘That group, composed of but few 
species, resort to the most desert regions, preferring dry and 
burning wastes to the cool shelter of the woods. These oceans, 
as they might be termed, of sand, so terrific to the eye and the 
imagination of the human traveller, they boldly venture to 
cross in large companies in search of the fluid so indispensable 
to life, but there so scarce, and only found in certain spots. 
Over the intervening spaces they pass with extraordinary ra- 
pidity, and at a great elevation, being the only gallinaceous 
birds furnished with wings of the form required for such flights. 
This, however, is not the only peculiarity in which they aber- 
rate from the rest of their order, and approach the pigeons, 
being said to lay but few eggs, the young remaining in the 
nest until they are full fledged, and fed in the meantime by 
the parents. ; 
The grouse dwell in forests, especially such as are deep, 
and situated in mountainous districts ; the Bonasic, however, 
and the Tetrao Cupido, frequenting plains where grow trees of 
various kinds. The Lagopodes of the arctic regions, or ptar- 
migans, are also found on the very elevated mountains of Cen- 
tral Europe, where the temperature corresponds to that of 
more northern latitudes. Here they keep among the tufts of 


