662 
GALLINACEOUS BIRDS. 
Subgenus. — Tetrao. 
Tarsus wholly feathered ; toes naked. Not varying sensibly with 
the seasons. The flesh black. These inhabit temperate and almost 
mild regions, and dwell in plains and level as well as mountainous 
countries. 
PINNATED GROUS. 
(Tetrao cupido, L. Wilson, iii. p. 104.pl. 27. fig. 1. [male.] Phil. 
Museum, No. 4700,4701.) 
Sp, Charact. — Partly crested, mottled; tail rather short, much 
rounded, formed of 18 nearly plain dusky feathers, tipped with 
whitish; primaries externally spotted with brownish white.— 
In the male the neck is furnished with wing-like appendages. ■ — 
Female and young without the cervical tufts. 
Choosing particular districts for residence, the Grous , 
or Prairie-Hen, is consequently by far less eommon than 
the preceding species. Confined to dry, barren, and 
bushy tracts, of small extent, they are in several places 
now wholly or nearly exterminated. Along the Atlantic 
coast, they are still met with on the Grous plains of New 
Jersey, on the brushy plains of Long Island, in similar 
shrubby barrens in Westford, Connecticut, in the island of 
Martha’s Vinyard on the south side of Massachusetts Bay ; 
and formerly, as probably in many other tracts, according 
to the information which I have received from Lieut. Gov- 
ernor Winthrop, they were so common on the ancient bushy 
site of the city of Boston, that laboring people or ser- 
vants stipulated with their employers not to have the Heath- 
Hen brought to table oftener than a few times in the week ! 
According to Wilson, they are also still met with among 
the scrub-oak and pine-hills of Pocono, in Northampton 
county, Pennsylvania. They are also rather common 
throughout the barrens of Kentucky, and on the prairies 
