SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 
491 
The female represented in the figure was fifteen inches long ; 
its general colour mottled with black and yellowish rufous ; 
the feathers of the head above are yellowish rufous banded 
with black, the shaft yellowish ; a line above the eye, the 
cheeks, and the throat, are pure yellowish rusty, with very 
few blackish dots, and a band of the latter colour from the bill 
beneath the eye, and spreading behind ; all the lower parts are 
whitish cream, with a yellowish rusty tinge ; each feather of 
the neck and breast, with a broad blackish subterminal mar- 
gin, in the shape of a crescent, becoming more and more nar- 
row and acute as they are lower down on the belly, until the 
lowest are reduced to a mere black mark in the middle ; the 
lower tail-coverts and the femorals are entirely destitute of 
black. All the upper parts, viz., the back, rump, upper tail- 
coverts, and scapulars, have a uniform mottled appearance of 
black and rusty, each feather being black, with rusty shafts, 
spots, bands, or margins, the rusty again minutely dotted with 
black; on the rump, but especially on the tail-coverts, the 
rusty predominates in such a manner that each feather becomes 
first banded with black and rusty, then decidedly rusty, varied 
with black, which, however, does not change in the least the 
general effect. The wing-coverts are dusky, each with a large 
round white spot at tip, the inner gradually taking the mark- 
ings of the back and scapulars ; the lining of the shoulder is 
plain dusky, as well as the spurious wing and the primaries, 
each feather of the spurious wing having about five large 
round spots of white on its outer web ; the primaries are regu- 
larly marked on the same side with eight or ten squarish, equi- 
distant, white spots, with a few inconspicuous whitish dots on 
their inner web, besides ; the secondaries are also dusky, but in 
them the spots take the appearance of bands continued across 
the whole feather, of which bands there are three or four, in- 
cluding the terminal; the inner secondaries become darker 
and darker as they approach the body, the white becomes ru- 
fous, the dots are more frequent, and they become confounded 
with the scapulars, and are banded and mottled with various 
