3706 DUSKY GROUSE. 
the great chain dividing the waters of the Mississippi from 
those which flow towards the Pacific, at a spot where, on the 
10th of July 1820, the exploring party of Major Long were 
overlooking, from an elevation of one or two thousand feet, a 
wide extent of country. A small river poured down the side 
of the mountain, through a deep and inaccessible chasm, form- 
ing a continued cascade of several hundred feet. The surface 
of the country appeared broken for several miles, and in many 
of the valleys could be discerned columnar and pyramidal 
masses of sandstone, some entirely naked, and others bearing 
small tufts of bushes about their summits. When the bird 
flew, and at the unexpected moment of its death, it uttered 
a cackling note, somewhat resembling that of the domestic 
fowl. 
The female dusky grouse is eighteen inches in length. The 
bill measures precisely an inch, which is small in proportion ; 
it is blackish, with the base of the under mandible whitish. 
The general colour of the plumage is blackish brown, much 
lighter on the neck and beneath, all the feathers having two 
or three narrow bars of pale ochreous, much less pure and 
bright on the neck and breast ; the small short feathers at the 
base of the bill covering the nostrils are tinged with ferrugi- 
nous, those immediately nearest the forehead have but a single 
band, and are slightly tipt, while the larger ones of the neck, 
back, rump, and even the tail-coverts, as well as the feathers 
of the breast, have two bands and the tip. These rufous ter- 
minal margins on the upper portion of the back and on the 
tail-coverts are broad, and sprinkled with black, so as to be 
often blended with the lower band. ‘The sides of the head 
and the throat are whitish, dotted with blackish, the black 
occupying both sides of each feather, deepening and taking a 
band-like appearance on the inferior portion of the upper sides 
of the neck ; on each feather of the breast is a whitish band 
that becomes wider on those nearest the belly ; the flanks are 
varied with rufous, each feather having, besides the small tip, 
three broad cross lines of that colour, and a white spot at the 
