382 SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 
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 colour being there much lighter, 
and approaching to white, and even constituting the ground 
colour. The breast 1s brown, approaching to chocolate, each 
feather being terminated by a white fringe, with a large arrow- 
shaped spot of that colour on the middle of each feather, so 
that, when the plumage 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 forming 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. 
he 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 ochreous exteriorly ; the under tail-coverts are white 
blackish along the shafts, and more or less varied with black 
in different specimens ; 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 
uniform 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 
