212 
TETKAO UROPHASIANUS. 
the middle ones, are more thickly sprinkled with rusty 
orange, taking the appearance of hands on the middle 
feathers, their orange coloured tip being, moreover, not 
so pure, and also sprinkled. 
The present bird comes from the Rocky Mountains : 
it is a male, and remarkably distinguished from the 
common ones of his species, by having the tail-feathers 
entirely black to the end. This difference I have 
observed to be constant in other specimens from the 
same wild locality ; whilst all the northern specimens, 
of which I have examined a great number, are alike 
distinguished by the broad rufous tip, as in those 
described, and as also described by Linne and all other 
writers, who have even considered that as an essential 
mark of the species. The Rocky Mountain specimens 
are, moreover, somewhat larger, and their toes, though 
likewise strongly pectinated, are, perhaps, somewhat 
less so, and the tail-coverts are pure white at tip. 
But, Heaven forbid that our statements should excite 
the remotest suspicion, that these slight aberrations 
are characteristic of different species! If we might 
venture an opinion not corroborated by observation, 
we would say, that we should not be astonished, if the 
most obvious discrepancy, that of the tail, were entirely 
owing to season, the red tip being the full spring 
plumage ; though it is asserted, that this species does not 
vary in its plumage with the seasons. 
45 . TETRAO UROPHASIANUS , BONAPARTE. 
COCK OF THE PLAINS, 
BONAPARTE, PLATE XXI. FIG. II» 
It is with the liveliest satisfaction that we are enabled 
finally to enrich the North American Fauna with the 
name and description of this noble bird ; which 
must have formed from the earliest periods a principal 
ornament of the distant wilds of the west. Hardly |j 
inferior to the turkey in size, beauty, and usefulness, 
the cock of the plains is entitled to the first place in ji 
