304. SPOTTED GROUSE. 
feathers of the flanks are blackish, deeper at first, and barred 
with very bright orange, then much mottled with dull greyish 
rusty, each having a triangular white spot near the tip. The 
wings and tail are similar to those of the male, the variegation 
of the scapulars and upper coverts being only of a much more 
rusty tinge, dull orange in the middle of the shaft, all the 
larger feathers having, moreover, a white streak along the 
shaft, ending in a pure white spot, wanting in the male. The 
outer edge of the primaries is more broadly whitish, and the 
tertials are dingy white at the point, being also crossed with 
dull orange; the tail-feathers, especially the middle ones, are 
more thickly sprinkled with rusty orange, taking the appear- 
ance of bands on the middle feathers, their orange-coloured 
tip being, moreover, not so pure, and also sprinkled. 
The bird represented in the plate comes from the Rocky 
Mountains: it is a male, and remarkably distinguished from 
the common ones of his species by having the tail-feathers 
entirely black to the end. ‘This difference I have observed to 
be constant in other specimens from the same wild locality ; 
whilst all the northern specimens, of which I have examined 
a great number, are alike distinguished by the broad rufous 
tip, as in those described, and as also described by Linné and 
all other writers, who have even considered that as an essen- 
tial mark of the species. 'The Rocky Mountain specimens are, 
moreover, somewhat larger, and their toes, though likewise 
strongly pectinated, are, perhaps, somewhat less so, and the 
tail-coverts are pure white at tip, as represented in the plate. 
But Heaven forbid that our statements should excite the 
remotest suspicion that these slight aberrations are character- 
istic of different species! If we might venture an opinion not 
corroborated by observation, we would say, that we should not 
be astonished if the most obvious discrepancy, that of the tail, 
were entirely owing to season, the red tip being the full spring 
plumage ; though it is asserted that this species does not vary 
in its plumage with the seasons. However this may be, we 
have thought proper to give a representation of the anomalous 
