204 
TETRAO PHASIANELLUS. 
sprinkled with blackish on the whole of their outer 
web ; all the other lateral feathers, entirely concealed 
by the coverts, are pure white at the point, but with 
dusky shafts, and are more or less broadly dark cinereous 
at base ; these feathers are very rigid, and of a curious 
form, tapering from the base to the point, where they 
suddenly dilate ; they are deeply emarginated at tip, and 
their inner lobe projects considerably ; the tarsus is two 
inches long ; the slender hair-like feathers covering it, 
are, as well as the femorals, of a dingy grayish white, 
obsoletely waved with dusky; the toes are strongly 
pectinated, and are, as well as the nails, of a blackish 
dusky, while the long processes are whitish. 
The foregoing minute description is chiefly taken 
from a handsome male specimen from Arctic America. 
There is no difference between the sexes, at least we 
have not been able to detect any in all the specimens of 
both that we have examined ; hence we conclude that 
the difference generally described by authors, and 
which we have ourselves copied in our Synopsis, that 
of the breast being chocolate brown in the male, and 
uniform with the rest of the plumage in the female, 
does not exist. The female is merely less bright and 
glossy. Both sexes, like other grouse, have a papillous 
red membrane over the eye, not always seen in stuffed 
skins, and which is said to be very vivid in the male of 
this species in the breeding season. This membrane, 
an inch in length, becomes distended, and projects 
above the eye in the shape of a small crest, three-eighths 
of an inch high. The male at this season, like that of 
other species, and indeed of most gallinaceous birds, 
struts about in a very stately manner, carrying himself 
very upright ; the middle feathers of the tail are more 
or less elongated, in young birds scarcely exceeding the 
adjoining by half an inch. 
The spring plumage is much more bright and glossy 
than the autumnal, and also exhibits differences in the 
spots and markings. The female specimen we have 
selected for the following description, on account of its 
being the only one we had from the United States 
