398 COCK OF THE PLAINS. 
remaining differences will be better estimated by attending to 
the following minute and accurate description. 
The female of the cock of the plains, represented in the 
plate of one-half the natural size, is from twenty-eight to 
thirty inches in length. The bill is one inch and a quarter 
long, perfectly similar to that of 7. wrogallus, perhaps a trifle 
less stout, and with the base (if this remarkable character be 
not accidental in our specimen) farther produced among the 
feathers of the front ; the whole plumage above is blackish, 
most minutely dotted, mottled, and sprinkled with whitish, 
tinged here and there with very pale yellowish rusty, hardly 
worth mentioning ; on the head, and all the neck, the feathers 
being small, minutely crossed transversely with blackish and 
whitish lines, gives the plumage quite a minutely dotted ap- 
pearance; the superciliar line is slightly indicated by more 
whitish ; on a spot above the eye, in the space between the 
bill and eye, and along the mouth beneath, the black predomi- 
nates, being nearly pure: on the throat, on the contrary, it is 
the white that prevails, so as to be whitish dotted with black ; 
on the lower portion of the neck, the black again is the pre- 
vailing colour, the black feathers there being nearly tipt 
with greyish; the sides of the neck are pure white for a space ; 
from the lower portion of the neck to the upper tail-coverts 
inclusively, the back, scapulars, wing-coverts, and secondaries, 
the blackish feathers have each two or three yellowish white 
bands, which are broader, especially on the upper part of the 
back and are moreover sprinkled with white somewhat tinged 
with rusty; the scapulars and wing-coverts are besides shafted 
with white, somewhat dilating towards the point, the scapulars 
being of a deeper black ; the spurious wing and primaries are 
plain dusky, with paler edges, the outer with some indications 
of whitish dots (generally found in grouse) on the outer vane, 
but no regular white spots; the secondaries are tipt with white, 
and those which are next to the primaries nearly plain on their 
inner web; the primaries are rather slender, the inferior surface 
of the wings is of a very pale silvery grey; the under ‘wing- 
coverts and long axillary feathers being pure silvery white, 


