SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 
489 
marbled with white and brownish on the outer margin ; the 
quills are plain dusky brown, the primaries being regularly 
marked with pure white spots half an inch apart on their outer 
webs, except at the point of the first ; the longest feather of 
the spurious wing, and the larger outer coverts, have also a 
pair of these spots ; the secondaries, besides the outer spots, 
which assume the appearance of bands, are tipped with pure 
white, forming a narrow terminal margin ; those nearest the 
tertials are also slightly marked with rusty ; the tertials them- 
selves are similar to the scapulars, that is, they are black, 
banded and sprinkled with different shades of rusty ; the tail is 
strongly cuneiform and graduated, of eighteen feathers, with 
the middle five inches long, which is three more than the outer. 
According to some accounts, the two middle feathers are by 
more than two inches longer than the adjoining, but in all we 
have examined, the difference was little more than an inch ; 
the four middle are similar in shape, texture, and colour, being 
narrow, flaccid, equal in breadth throughout, though somewhat 
dilated and cut square at the end. In colour, they vary con- 
siderably in different specimens, the ground being generally 
black, and the tips white, but more or less varied, in some 
with white, and in others with rusty ; these colours being at 
one time pure, at another sprinkled with blackish, and assu- 
ming various tints ; in one specimen they are disposed in spots, 
in another in bands, lines, chains, angles, &c. ; but generally 
in a long stripe on each side of the shaft at base, and in trans- 
verse spots at the point of the two longest, while they are in 
round spots all along each side of the two shortest : in one 
specimen, the latter are even almost plain, being dingy white, 
sprinkled with blackish on the whole of their outer web ; all 
the other lateral feathers, entirely concealed by the coverts, 
are pure white at the point, but with dusky shafts, and are 
more or less broadly dark cinereous at base ; these feathers are 
very rigid, and of a curious form, tapering from the base to the 
point, where they suddenly dilate ; they are deeply emargina- 
ted at tip, and their inner lobe projects considerably ; the tar- 
