TETRAONID/E. 343 



very swiftly, and generally to a considerable distance before alighting-. The male, 

 in spring, makes a very singular, loud noise, resembling the quick roll of a drum, 

 which can be heard at a great distance, and is produced by rapid strokes of the 

 wings. It is a very pleasant sight, on a fine sunny day, to observe this bird 

 strutting about like a Turkey-cock, his wings drooping, tail erected, and ruffs 

 displayed, showing off his finery to the females, who lie hid in the neighbourhood. 

 The flesh of the Ruffed Grouse is very white and tender, but rather insipid. 



DESCRIPTION 



Of a male, killed May 4, on the Saskatchewan plains. 



Colour. — Back, rump, and upper tail coverts chestnut-brown, mottled and finely undu- 

 lated with blackish-brown ; the broad tips and a cordiform central mark on each feather pale 

 grey. Back of the neck, scapulars, and wing coverts having the same colours, but the grey 

 tips very narrow, the blackish-brown in large blotches, and, instead of central marks, stripes 

 along the shafts of orange-brown and brownish-white. Top and sides of the head, the 

 tertiaries, and outer edges of the secondaries, mottled with the same. Eye stripe from the 

 nostrils whitish. Shoulder tufts velvet-black, glossed with dark-green. Quills liver-brown, 

 the outer webs barred near the base and mottled towards the tips with cream-yellow. Tail 

 grey, finely undulated, and also crossed by about nine narrow bars and a broad subterminal 

 one of blackish-brown. Under plumage : — throat and breast yellowish-brown, belly and vent 

 brownish-white; all remotely barred, but most broadly on the sides of the belly, with blackish- 

 brown, which also forms a band across the upper part of the breast between the ruffs. Inner 

 wing coverts and axillaries clove-brown, barred and tipped with white. Bill and nails dark 

 horn-colour. — A male, killed at the same time with the preceding, and of equal dimensions, 

 shows more of the chestnut or orange-brown in its plumage, and the ground colour of its tail 

 is yellowish-brown, the extreme tips and a bar next the broad subterminal dark one being 

 grey. — Females have less of the blackish-brown colour ; the shoulder tufts are orange-brown 

 instead of black ; and the subterminal bar on the tail chestnut-coloured. In the young birds 

 the orange-brown is the prevailing tint of colour*. 



Form. — A short crest on the top of the head : a fringed comb over the eye in the male. 

 Shoulder tufts consisting of about fifteen fan-shaped feathers. Fourth quill the longest, 

 slightly exceeding the third and fifth. Tail fan-shaped, of eighteen feathers, the central pair 

 more than half an inch longer than the outer ones : the individual feathers nearly square at 

 the end. Tarsus feathered more than halfway down anteriorly, and about half an inch 

 lower posteriorly. All the toes strongly pectinated. 



* After a careful comparison of the specimens of Mr. Douglas's Tetrao Salinii, deposited in the Edinburgh Museum, 

 they appeared to me to differ in no respect from the young of Tetrao umbellus ; and the characters by which he distin- 

 guishes his bird are equally applicable to the latter : — (R.) 



T. Sabinii, rufus nigro notatus, dorso maculis cordiformibus, nucha alisque lineis ferrugineo-flavis, abdomine albo 

 brunneo fasciato, reclricibus fasciatis : fascia sub-apicali lata nigra. — Doucl., Linn. Trans., xvi., p. 137. 



