ZOOLOGY. 
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more and more bluish to the innermost, which is brown. Seen from above there is the same gradation from white to light 
blue in the tips ; the rest of the feather, however, is blue, with a bar of black anterior to the light tip, which runs a little 
forward along the margin and shaft of the feather. In the sixth feather the color is uniform bluish, with this bar ; the 
seventh is without bars. Bill black ; feet yellow. Female smaller, with less red beneath. Length of male, 12. 50 to 
12. 85 ; extent, 17. 25 to 18 ; wing, 5. 75 ; tail, 6. 70. 
Hah. — Throughout the United States, from Atlantic to Pacific; Cuba, Gundlach. 
The Carolina dove is common about prairies and farms of the interior, and probably some 
remain all winter in the Territory, though none were at Vancouver in the snowy winter of 
1853. They rarely appear along the coast border, but doubtless extend east to the Rocky 
mountains. — C. 
Very abundant throughout both Territories. At Fort Steilacoom this species arrives and 
departs at about the same time as the Columha fasciata. During my residence there I obtained 
many specimens for comparison with eastern birds. 
Note. — I noticed a small dove in the Simcoe valley, near the Yakima river, Washington 
Territory, in June, 1855. It appeared smaller and much darlcer than this species, being of a 
dark blue. I was, unfortunately, unable to obtain a specimen for preservation. — S. 
Family T E T R A 0 N I D A E . — T h e Grouse. 
TETRAO OBSCURUS, Say. 
Dusky Grouse ; Blue Grouse ; Pine Grouse. 
Tetrao obscurus, Say, Long's Exped. K. Mts. II, 1823, 14.— Bon. Syn. 1828, 127.— Sw. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 344 ; pi. 
lix, Ix.— NuTTALL, Man. I, 1832, 666.— Aud. Orn. Biog. IV, 1838, 446; pi. 361.— Ib. Syn. 1839, 
283.— Ib. Birds Amer. I, 1842, 89; pi. 295.— Baird, Gen. Rep. p. 620.— Newberry, Rep. P. E . 
R. Surv. VI, IV, 1857, 93. 
Canact obscura, Bonap. Comptes Eendus, XLV, 1857, 428. 
Tetrao richardsonii, Douglas, Trans. Linn. Soc. XVI, 1829, 141. 
Sp. Ch.— Sexes dissimilar. Tail of twenty feathers. Above bluish black ; plumbeous or black beneath. Tail uniform black, 
and finely and obscurely mottled above. Tail broadly tipped with light slate. Beneath uniform plumbeous. A dusky half 
collar on the throat. The chin and throat above white, varied with black. Tail about two-thirds the length of the wings, 
broad, rounded, composed of twenty broad, even, and truncated feathers. Tarsi feathered to the toes, the feathers extending 
along the sides of the basal half of the first joints of the toes. Pectinations on the sides of the toes very short. Length, 
20. 40 ; wing, 9. 40 ; tail, 7. 45. 
Hab. — Black Hills of Nebraska to Cascade mountains of Oregon and Washington. 
The dusky or " blue grouse," as it is called in the western country, is common in most of the 
forests of the Territory, though rather in the dense spruce forests near the coast. As it rarely 
appears on the open prairie, it is diflScult to start, and still more so to find, if, as usual, it alights 
on a tree. So perfectly motionless does it sit, that though one may be looking straight at it 
he will probably mistake it for a knot or a bunch of leaves. I have often searched carefully 
every branch, and after concluding that the bird was not there, and starting to go, had the 
satisfaction of seeing it sail off from the very same tree towards some distant part of the forest. 
During May, near the coast, and until August, on the mountains, the low tooting of this grouse 
is heard everywhere, sounding something like the cooing of a pigeon, and in the same deep tone 
as the drumming of the ruffed grouse. It has the power of ventriloquism, so that while the 
bird may be sitting in a tree overhead the sound seems to come from places quite distant. I 
have not seen the nest or eggs, but in June flocks of half-grown young are murdered by the 
Indians near Puget Sound. In winter they are so rarely seen west of the mountains that the 
