478 
DUSKY GROUSE. 
surmounted by a conspicuous red and papillous naked space ; 
the tarsi are generally spurless in both sexes, and partly or 
wholly covered with slender feathers, which in the Lagopodes 
are thicker and longer than in the rest, extending not only be- 
yond the toes, but growing even on the sole of the foot — a pe- 
culiarity which, agreeably to the observation of Buffon, of all 
animals is again met with only in the hare. These feathers 
in winter become still longer and closer. All the others have 
the toes scabrous beneath, and furnished with a pectinated 
row of processes on each side.* This roughness of the sole of 
the feet enables them to tread firmly on the slippery surface of 
the ground or frozen snow, or to grasp the branches of trees 
covered with ice. Their nails are manifestly so formed as to 
suit them for scratching away the snow covering the vegetables 
which compose their food. The wings of the grouse are short 
and rounded ; the first primary is shorter than the third and 
fourth, which are longest. The tail is usually composed of 
eighteen feathers, generally broad and rounded. The red 
grouse, T, Scoticus, however, and the European Bonasice, and 
T. Canadensis^ or spotted grouse, have but sixteen ; while our 
two new North American species have twenty, one of them 
having these feathers very narrow and pointed, the narrowness 
being also observed in the sharp-tailed grouse. They have 
the head small, the neck short, and the body massive and very 
fleshy. 
The females of the larger species differ greatly from jthe 
males, which are glossy black, or blackish, while the former 
are mottled with grey, blackish, and rufous : such are all the 
typical Tetraones of Europe, and the cock of the plains, the 
dusky and the spotted grouse of America. The smaller species, 
in which both sexes are mottled, such as T, phasianellus and 
T, cupidoj exhibit little or no difference in the plumage of the 
two sexes ; which is also the case in all the Bonasice and Bago-^ 
* These processes are liable to fall off, at least in preserved skins. It is ow- 
ing to this circumstance that we committed several errors in characterising 
these birds in our Synopsis of the Birds of the United States. 
