DUSKY GROUSE. 
481 
first time in the American territory, and not elsewhere. For 
the history of the discovery, the manners, habitation, and a 
particular description of each of these, we shall refer the reader 
to their several articles. 
The dusky grouse is eminently distinguished from all other 
known species by having the tail slightly rounded, and com- 
posed of twenty broad and rounded feathers. This peculiarity 
of the extraordinary number of tail-feathers, is only found be- 
sides in the cock of the plains, in which, however, they are 
not rounded, but very slender, tapering, and acute. In size 
and colour, the dusky grouse may be compared to the black 
grouse of Europe, so remarkable for the outward curvature 
of the lateral feathers of the tail. 
The figure in our plate is taken from the specimen on which 
Say established the species ; this was killed on a mountain in 
the great chain dividing the waters of the Mississippi from 
those which flow towards the Pacific, at a spot where, on the 
10th of July, 1820, the exploring party of Major Long were 
overlooking, from an elevation of one or two thousand feet, a 
wide extent of country. A small river poured down the side 
of the mountain, through a deep and inaccessible chasm, form- 
ing a continued cascade of several hundred feet. The surface 
of the country appeared broken for several miles, and in many 
of the valleys could be discerned columnar and pyramidal 
masses of sandstone, some entirely naked, and others bearing 
small tufts of bushes about their summits. When the bird 
flew, and at the unexpected moment of its death, it uttered 
a cackling note, somewhat resembling that of the domestic 
fowl. 
The female dusky grouse is eighteen inches in length. The 
bill measures precisely an inch, which is small in proportion ; 
it is blackish, with the base of the under mandible whitish. 
The general colour of the plumage is blackish brown, much 
lighter on the neck and beneath, all the feathers having two 
or three narrow bars of pale ochreous, much less pure and 
bright on the neck and breast ; the small short feathers at the 
VOL. III. 2 H 
