66 
BULLETIN OF THE NUT TALL 
ture have almost^ if not quite, reached generic distinctness, while 
the colors have remained essentially unaltered. The same may be 
said of Junco insularis, Thryomanes hrevicauda^ and Colarptes riifi- 
pileus, while the remaining species, Regidus ohscurus, Salpinctes gua~ 
dalnjoensis, and Pipilo consohrinus are either more recent arrivals or 
species in which the process of change has been comparatively 
slow. 
AN UNDESCRIBED HYBRID BETWEEN TWO NORTH 
AMERICAN GROUSE. 
BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 
In the preparation of the following paper I have hesitated not a 
little as to the propriety of giving a name to the bird about to be 
described. That it is a hybrid between the Pinnated Grouse 
{Cupidonia cupido) and the Southern race of the Sharp-tailed 
Grouse [Pedioecetes phasianellus var. coliimhianus) is unquestionable, 
and, further, I consider it almost equally certain that offspring 
resulting from such unnatural connections are of regular, perhaps 
even not uncommon, occurrence wherever the two just mentioned 
species are found together. Indeed, I am aware at the time of 
writing, of three other similar specimens in private cabinets, and I 
have heard of additional ones. Although I have examined but one 
besides my own, I understand that they are all in every way nearly 
identical, and the fact of their having been procured from different 
localities must go far towards proving that their occurrence is by 
no means exceptional or unique. Granting this to be a fact, it 
seems reasonable that so distinctly specialized a form should bear a 
distinguishing name, for though certainly the result of a mesalliance, 
and combining in itself characters peculiar to two different species, 
it is yet unlike either. 
But I do not claim originality for a system that has been long 
established among European authorities. In respect to the name 
to be adopted I shall follow the practice of Mr. Robert Collett. 
This gentleman, in writing upon the “ Rakkelhane,” a hybrid be- 
tween Tetrao urogalhis and T. tetrix, says,* it “is a compound and 
* '!l^emarks on the Ornithology of Northern Norway by Robert Collett. From 
the Forhandl. Videusk. Selsk. Christiania, 1872. (Page 50 of the reprint.) 
