360 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



on the tail, the lower ones tolerably defined, but those towards the ends obscure : the margins 

 are zig-zagged, and bordered by dark umber-brown, with irregular zig-zag lines of the same, 

 upon a light hair-brown ground, between each bar. The quills, as is usual in this genus, 

 are light and almost unspotted, and the narrowed extremities of the tail are almost black. 

 Under plumage, white and unspotted on the breast and part of the body ; but dark umber- 

 brown, approaching to black, on the lower half of the body and part of the flanks; the latter 

 towards the vent are marked as on the upper plumage. Under tail coverts black, broadly 

 tipped with white. Feathers of the thighs and tarsi light hair-brown, mottled with darker 

 lines. Throat and region of the head varied with blackish on a white ground, in too inde- 

 finite and unequal a manner for description. The shafts of all the feathers on the breast are 

 black, rigid, and look like hairs ; but those of the scale-like feathers of the sides are white 

 and thicker. Bill and toes blackish. 



Form. — Bill thick and strong, but more compressed than in the typical species ; the ridge 

 of the culmen is advanced to a remarkable extent towards the front, and divides the thickset 

 feathers which cover the nostrils by a convex ridge of three-quarters of an inch long. This is 

 a very peculiar and important character, since it plainly indicates the analogy of this form 

 to Cassicus, Scaphidurus, Buceros, Ramphastos, Rallus, and numerous other rasorial types. 

 On each side the breast the present specimen exhibits two prominent, naked protuberances, 

 as in the female bust, perfectly destitute of hairs or feathers ; their situation seems to be 

 more forward than the analogous naked parts of Tetrao cupido, these latter being in that 

 part of the neck which in all birds is more or less bare, but which in the present species is 

 covered with thick and fine down, obviously concealed in the living bird by the junction of 

 the front and back feathers of the throat. On each side of these protuberances, and higher 

 up on the neck, is a tuft of feathers, having their shafts considerably elongated and naked, 

 gently curved, and tipped with a pencil of a few black radii ; these tufts occur at the same 

 part as those of T. umbellus, to which they are analogous; but as they are placed (in this 

 specimen) much behind the naked protuberances, they do not appear intended to cover them 

 when not inflated. On the sides of the neck and across the breast, below the protuberances, 

 the feathers are particularly short, rigid, and acute, laying over each other with the same 

 compactness and regularity as the scales of a fish, excepting that their extremities are not 

 rounded, but acutely pointed. Lower down the breast these feathers, however, begin to 

 assume more of the ordinary shape ; but the shafts still remain very thick and rigid, while 

 each is terminated by a slender, naked filament, hornlike, shining, and somewhat flattened 

 towards the end, where there are a few obsolete radii. Beyond these the feathers of the rest 

 of the body are of the ordinary construction. Wings, in proportion to the size of the bird, 

 very short ; the lesser quills ending in a small mucro or point. Tail rather lengthened and 

 considerably rounded, each feather lanceolate, and gradually attenuated to a fine point. 

 Tarsi somewhat elevated, thickly clothed with feathers to the base of the toes, and over the 

 membrane which connects them : the inner toe and claw shorter than that of the external 

 one by full three-tenths of an inch ; hind toe moderate, double the length of its claw. 



In the female the colours of the whole upper plumage, tail, wing covers, tertiaries, front 

 of the neck, and sides of the breast, are dark umber, or blackish-brown and yellowish-white, 



