SPOTTED GROUSE. 
499 
pure white, the tips of its downy feathers being of that colour ^ 
the under tail-coverts are deep black, pure white for half an 
inch at their tip, and with a white mark along the shaft be- 
sides. The wings are seven inches long, the fourth primary 
alone being somewhat longer than the rest. The upper co- 
verts and scapularies are blackish, waved and mottled with 
greyish rusty ; the longest scapularies have a small terminal 
spot of pure white along their shaft. The smaller coverts are 
merely edged with greyish rusty, and in very perfect speci- 
mens they are even plain ; the under wing-coverts are brown- 
ish dusky, edged with greyish, some of the largest, as well as 
the long axillary feathers, having white shafts, dilating into 
a terminal spot; the remaining inferior surface of the wing is 
bright silvery grey ; the spurious wing and the quills are plain 
dusky brown, the secondaries being slightly tipped and edged 
externally with paler, and those nearest the body somewhat 
mottled with greyish rusty at the point, and on the inner 
vane ; the primaries, with the exception of the first, are slightly 
marked with whitish grey on their outer edge, but are entirely 
destitute of white spots. The tail is six inches long, well 
rounded, and composed of only sixteen feathers. These are 
black, with a slight sprinkling of bright reddish on the outer 
web at base, under the coverts, which disappears almost en- 
tirely with age ; all are bright dark rusty for half an inch 
at their tip, this colour itself being finely edged and shafted 
with black. The tarsus measures an inch and a half; its feathers, 
together with the femorals, are dingy grey, slightly waved 
with dusky ; 'the toes are dusky ; the lateral scales dingy 
whitish, and the nails blackish. 
The female is smaller than the male, being more than an 
inch shorter. The general plumage is much more varied, with 
less of black, but much more of rusty. There is a tinge of ru- 
fous on the feathers of the nostrils ; those of the head, neck, 
and upper part of the back, are black, with two or three bright 
bands of orange rusty, and tipped with grey ; there is more of 
the grey tint on the neck, on the lower part of which above^ 
