196 TETRAO OBSCURUS. 
and composed of twenty broad and rounded feathers* 
This peculiarity of the extraordinary number of tail- 
feathers, is only found besides in the cock of the plains* 
in which, however, they are not rounded, but very 
slender, tapering*, and acute. In size and colour the 
dusky grouse may be compared to the black grouse of 
Europe, so remarkable for the outward curvature of the 
lateral feathers of the tail. 
The present specimen is that on which Say established 
the species : it was killed on a mountain in the great 
chain dividing the waters of the Mississippi from those 
which flow towards the Pacific, at a spot where, on 
the 10th of July, 1820, the exploring party of Major 
Long were overlooking, from an elevation of one or 
two thousand feet, a wide extent of country. A small 
river poured down the side of the mountain through a 
deep and inaccessible chasm, forming a continued cascade 
of several hundred feet. The surface of the country 
appeared broken for several miles, and in many of the 
valleys could be discerned columnar and pyramidal 
masses of sandstone, some entirely naked, and others 
bearing small tufts of bushes about their summits. 
When the bird flew, and, at the unexpected moment of 
its death, it uttered a cackling note, somewhat resembling 
that of the domestic fowl. 
The female dusky grouse is eighteen inches in length. 
The bill measures precisely an inch, which is small in 
proportion ; it is blackish, with the base of the under 
mandible whitish. The general colour of the plumage 
is blackish brown, much lighter on the neck and 
beneath, all the feathers having two or three narrow 
bars of pale ochreous, much less pure and bright on the 
neck and breast ; the small short feathers at the base 
of the bill covering the nostrils are tinged with 
ferruginous, those immediately nearest the forehead 
have but a single band, and are slightly tipped, while 
the larger ones of the neck, back, rump, and even the 
tail-coverts, as well as the feathers of the breast, have 
two bands and the tip. These rufous terminal margins, 
on the upper portion of the back, and on the tail- 
