SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 383 
and outer coverts are of the same brown, but each feather 
bears at the point a large and very conspicuous pure white 
spot ; 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, be- 
sides the outer spots, which assume the appearance of bands, 
are tipt with pure white, forming a narrow terminal mar- 
gin ; those nearest the tertials are also slightly marked with 
rusty; the tertials themselves are similar to the scapulars, 
that is, they are black, banded and sprinkled with different 
shades of rusty; the tail is strongly cuneiform and graduated, 
of eighteen feathers, with the middle five inches long, which 
is three more than the outer. According to some accounts, 
the two middle feathers are by more than two inches longer 
than the adjoining, but in all we have examined, the difference 
was little more than an inch; the four middle are similar in 
shape, texture, and colour, beimg narrow, flaccid, equal in 
breadth throughout, though somewhat dilated and cut square 
at the end. In colour, they vary considerably in different 
specimens, the ground being generally black, and the tips 
white, but more or less varied, in some with white, and in 
others with rusty ; these colours being at one time pure, at 
another sprinkled with blackish, and assuming various tints ; 
in one specimen they are disposed in spots, in another in 
bands, lines, chains, angles, &c.; but generally in a long stripe 
on each side of the shaft at base, and in transverse spots at the 
point of the two longest, while they are in round spots all 
along each side of the two shortest: in one specimen, the 
latter are even almost plain, being dingy white, sprinkled with 
