SHARP-TAILED GROUSE. 
203 
outer coverts, are of the same brown, but each feather 
bears at the point a large and very conspicuous pure 
white spot ; all the other superior coverts are blackish, 
sprinkled, and banded with rusty, each furnished with 
a conspicuous terminal spot ; the under wing-coverts, 
together with the long axillary feathers, are pure white, 
each with a single small dusky spot, and are marbled 
with white and brownish on the outer margin ; the 
quills are plain dusky brown, the primaries being 
regularly marked with pure white spots half an inch 
apart on their outer webs, except at the point of the 
first; the longest feather of the spurious wing, and the 
larger outer coverts, have also a pair of these spots ; 
the secondaries, besides the outer spots, which assume 
the appearance of bands, are tipped with pure white, 
forming a narrow terminal margin ; those nearest the 
tertials are also slightly marked with rusty ; the tertials 
themselves are similar to the scapulars, that is, they 
are black, banded and sprinkled with different shades 
of rusty ; the tail is strongly cuneiform and graduated, 
of eighteen feathers, with the middle five inches long, 
which is three more than the outer. According to 
some accounts, the two middle feathers are by more 
than two inches longer than the adjoining, but, in all 
we have examined, the difference was little more than 
an inch ; the four middle are similar in shape, texture, 
and colour, being narrow, flaccid, equal in breadth 
throughout, though somewhat dilated and cut square 
at the end. In colour, they vary considerably in dif- 
ferent specimens, the ground being generally black, and 
the tips white, but more or less varied, in some with 
White, and in others with rusty ; these colours being at 
one time pure, at another sprinkled with blackish, and 
assuming various tints ; in one specimen they are dis* 
posed in spots, in another in bands, lines, chains, angles, 
&c. ; but generally in a long stripe on each side of the 
shaft at base, and in transverse spots at the point of 
the two longest, while they are in round spots all 
along each side of the two shortest : in one specimen, 
the latter are even almost plain, being dingy white, 
