WOOD GROUS. 



J269 



Side, near tl:^ extremity : the tarsi are covered 

 with brown silky feathers, with loose webs, slightly 

 marked with white spots : the feet and claws horn- 

 colour. The female is much smaller than the 

 male, rarely measuring above twenty-six inches in 

 length : the beak is dusky : the head, neck, badk, 

 scapulars, and coverts of the wings and tail, are 

 dusky brown, varied with transverse stripes of 

 red : the tail dark rufous, barred with black and 

 tipped with white : the throat is reddish yellow : 

 the breast deep reddish, varied with a few white 

 spots : the belly the same, barred with black : the 

 under tail-coverts tipped with white : the quills 

 are dusky brown, mottled on their outer webs 

 with pale brown. 



The young of both sexes of the first year greatly 

 resemble the female : the males of the second 

 moult have the upper parts of the body greyish 

 black ; the green on the breast is very dull, and 

 often the feathers of the body are varied with 

 rufous, and the tail tipped with white. 



Several varieties of this species are briefly noticed 

 by Nilsson in his Ornithologia Suecica, which may 

 be readily discriminated from T. Tetrix, by the 

 tail being rounded : they are all described in the 

 synonyms as fully as in the above-mentioned work. 



This bird inhabits wooded and mountainous 

 countries, particularly pine forests or plantations 

 of juniper : it feeds upon the berries of the latter, 

 and those of the vaccinium,and also upon the seeds 

 and tops of the pine, which sometimes give the 

 flesh a very disagreeable flavour. In the spring 

 the male may be seen at sun-rise, and in the even- 



