206 
TETRAO CANADENSIS. 
same side with eight or ten squarish, equidistant, white 
spots, with a few inconspicuous whitish dots on 
their inner web besides ; the secondaries are also dusky, 
but in them the spots take the appearance of bands con- 
tinued across the whole feather, of which bands there 
are three or four, including the terminal ; the inner 
secondaries become darker and darker as they approach 
the body, the white becomes rufous, the dots are more 
frequent, and they become confounded with the scapu- 
lars, and are banded and mottled with various tints of 
black and rusty ; the lower wing-coverts and long 
axillary feathers are pure white, the outer coverts 
being marbled with dusky. The tail is composed of 
eighteen feathers ; it is cuneiform, very short, and 
entirely hidden by the coverts, except the four middle 
feathers ; the two middle feathers are flaccid, narrow, 
equal in breadth throughout, longer than the others by 
more than an inch, rusty, crossed by chained bands of 
black, and dotted with black and whitish at tip ; the 
two next are also longer than the others, nearly whitish, 
but almost similar in shape, markings, and texture, to 
the longest ; the lateral decrease in size very fast from 
the centre, but by regular degrees, and are remarkably 
stiff, somewhat like those of woodpeckers, wider at 
base and tip than in the middle, pure white at the end 
and on the inner web, the shaft black, and the outer 
web dotted with blackish ; they are deeply emarginated 
at tip, the inner lobe being longer, acute, and singularly 
shaped. 
44. TETRAO CANADENCIS . — SPOTTED GROUSE. 
BONAPARTE, PLATE XX. MALE ; PLATE XXI. FIG. 1. FEMALE. 
EDINBURGH COLLEGE MUSEUM. 
As may be seen by the synonymy, two separate 
species have been made of the present, the male and 
female being taken for different birds. This error, 
which originated with Edwards and Brisson, from 
whom it was copied by Linne, was rectified by Buffon, 
Forster, and others,* and in their decision Gmelin, 
