Observations on some Birds from Hudson's Bay. 57 



II. Observations on some of the Birds received from the Hudson's Bay 

 Company's Territories. By Sir William Jardine, Bart. 



Sir William Jardine, in remarking on the species of grouse 

 in the collection, observed that there were two species to which 

 the name of obscurus had been applied. The true dusky 

 grouse was first noticed by Mr Say in Major Long's expedition 

 to the Rocky Mountains, and was named by him as a new 

 species, Tetrao obscurus, at the same time describing it " with 

 a rounded tail, having a broad terminal cinereous band." It 

 has an extensive range, and extends to California, the speci- 

 men on the table having been obtained by Mr Hepburn in the 

 vicinity of San Francisco. In the beautiful ornithological 

 volume of the Northern Zoology by Sir John Richardson and 

 Mr Swainson, there is a bird excellently represented (Plate 

 59) under the same name, but which is quite distinct from the 

 San Francisco specimens. 



Some of our members will recollect that a collector was 

 sent out some years since on an expedition across the Rocky 

 Mountains to Oregon for the purpose of collecting the seeds 

 of hardy trees and plants. This is now generally known as the 

 " Oregon Expedition." I bargained that if any birds were 

 procured they should be sent to me, and among other interest- 

 ing birds Jeffreys sent a specimen of a grouse exactly corre- 

 sponding with Swainson's figure above quoted. ^ It is altogether 

 a distinct and darker-coloured bird, and is at once distinguished 

 by its broad tail, square at the end and entirely black, with- 

 out any terminal cinereous band ; the feathers individually 

 broaden towards the tips, and give it a more than usual 

 broad and ample appearance. It was found in the vicinity of 

 Jasper's House, lat. 53° 20'. It does not agree with any of 

 the birds described by the late David Douglass, procured in 

 his excursion across the Rocky Mountains, and I cannot find 

 the specimen from which Mr Swainson drew his figure ; but 

 being quite distinct from the T. obscurus of Say, I have 

 applied the specific name of melanurus. 



In regard to the northern gulls, it was remarked that there 

 were two birds supposed to be confounded under the common 

 name of Larus eburneus, or Ivory Gull, and it is uncertain 



VOL. II. h 



