210 
TETRAO CANADENSIS. 
white spots are not very conspicuous. The breast, also, 
is deep black, but each feather broadly tipped with 
pure white, constituting’ the large spots by which this 
species is so peculiarly distinguished. On the flanks, 
the feathers are at first, from their base, waved with 
black and grayish rusty crescents ; but these become 
gradually less pure and defined, and by getting confused, 
make the lowest appear mottled with the two colours; 
all are marked along the shaft with white, dilating at 
tip, forming on the largest a conspicuous terminal spot. 
The vent is for a space pure white, the tips of its downy 
feathers being of that colour : the under tail-coverts are 
deep black, pure white for half an inch at their tip, 
and with a white mark along the shaft besides. The 
wings are seven inches long, the fourth primary alone 
being somewhat longer than the rest. The upper 
coverts and scapularies are blackish, waved and mottled 
with grayish rusty ; the longest scapularies have a small 
terminal spot of pure white along their shaft. The 
smaller coverts are merely edged with grayish rusty, 
and, in very perfect specimens, they are even plain ; the 
under wing-coverts are brownish dusky, edged with 
grayish, some of the largest, as well as the long axillary 
feathers, having white shafts, dilating into a terminal 
spot; the remaining inferior surface of the wing is j 
bright silvery gra}^ : the spurious wing and the quills 
are plain dusky brown, the secondaries being slightly 
tipped and edged externally with paler, and those 
nearest the body somewhat mottled with grayish rusty 
at the point, and on the inner vane ; the primaries, with 
the exception of the first, are slightly marked with 
whitish gray on their outer edge, but are entirely 
destitute of white spots. The tail is six inches long, 
well rounded, and composed of only sixteen feathers. 
These are black, with a slight sprinkling of bright 
reddish on the outer web at base, under the coverts, 
which disappears almost entirely with age; all are 
bright dark rusty for half an inch at their tip, this I 
colour itself being finely edged and shafted with black. 
The tarsus measures an inch and a half, its feathers, 
