COCK OF THE PLAINS. 
503 
to add, it is true, to wliat is known of its habits, but we have 
it in our power to say that we have seen it ; we can determine 
its place in the system ; and now give a faithful representation 
of at least one sex. 
We have again to acknowledge ourselves indebted, no less 
to the industry and sagacity, than to the liberal views of Mr 
Leadbeater, for the present opportunity of representing this 
bird. His invaluable collection contains the only specimen 
known to be any where preserved. 
The name of cock of the plains was given by Lewis and 
Clark, and we have retained it, as being not only appropriate, 
but at the same time analogous to that of the large European 
species called cock of the woods. Similar reasons have influ- 
enced us in selecting the scientific name, which, though per- 
haps too long, and ill compounded, has nevertheless the advan- 
tage of combining analogy in meaning with the indication of 
a most remarkable characteristic of the bird. This species is 
in fact distinguished from all others of its genus, and especially 
from its European analogue, by its long tail, composed of 
twenty narrow, tapering, acute feathers; thus evincing the 
fallacy of the character erroneously attributed to all the grouse, 
of having broad and rounded tail-feathers. It is a singular 
fact, that both of the newly-discovered speeies from the north- 
western part of America, and they only, should be distinguish- 
ed by the extraordinary number of the feathers of the tail. In 
the dusky grouse, however, they are broad and rounded. The 
cock of the woods, like the greater part of the species, has but 
eighteen, which are also broad and rounded. The only grouse 
in which they are found narrow is the sharp-tailed, though 
without being either acute or tapering, but, on the contrary, 
square at tip, and of equal breadth throughout, or, if any thing, 
the lateral rather broader at the tip. 
Lewis and Clark first met with this bird on their journey 
westward, near the fountain of the Missouri, in the heart of 
the Rocky Mountains. They inform us that it is found on 
the plains of the Columbia in great abundance, from the en- 
