492 
SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 
tints of black and rusty; the lower wing-coverts, and long 
axillary feathers, are pure white, the outer coverts being 
marbled with dusky. The tail is composed of eighteen fea- 
thers ; it is cuneiform, very short, and entirely hidden by the 
coverts, except the four middle feathers ; the two middle fea- 
thers are flaccid, narrow, equal in breadth throughout, longer 
than the others by more than an inch, rusty, crossed by chained 
bands of black, and dotted with black and whitish at tip ; the 
two next are also longer than the others, nearly whitish, but 
almost similar in shape, markings, and texture, to the longest ; 
the lateral decrease in size very fast from the centre, but by 
regular degrees, and are remarkably stiff, somewhat like those 
of woodpeckers, wider at base and tip than in the middle, pure 
white at the end and on the inner web, the shaft black, and 
the outer web dotted with blackish ; they are deeply emargi- 
nate at tip, the inner lobe being longer, acute, and singularly 
shaped. 
