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34 DUSKY GROUS. 
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discovery, the manners, habitation, and a particular description 
of each of these, we shall refer the reader to their several articles. 
The Dusky Grous is eminently distinguished from all other 
known species, by having the tail slightly rounded, and composed 
of twenty broad and rounded feathers. This peculiarity of the 
extraordinary number of tail-feathers, is only found besides in the 
Cock of the Plains, in which however they are not rounded, but 
very slender, tapering, and acute. In size and colour, the Dusky 
Grous may be compared to the Black Grous of Europe, so 
remarkable for the outward curvature of the lateral feathers of 
the tail. 
The figure in our plate is taken from the specimen on which 
Say established the species: this was killed on a mountain in 
the great chain dividing the waters of the Mississippi from those 
which flow towards the Pacific; at a spot where, on the 10th of July 
1820, the exploring party of Major Long were overlooking from 
an elevation of one or two thousand feet, a wide extent of country. 
A small river poured down the side of the mountain through a 
deep and inaccessible chasm, forming a continued cascade of 
several hundred feet. The surface of the country appeared broken 
for several miles, and in many of the valleys could be discerned 
columnar and pyramidal masses of sandstone, some entirely 
naked, and others bearing small tufts of bushes about their 
summits. When the bird flew, and at the unexpected moment 
of its death, it uttered a cackling note somewhat resembling that 
of the domestic fowl. 
The female Dusky Grous is eighteen inches in length. The 
bill measures precisely an inch, which is small in proportion; it 
is blackish, with the base of the under mandible whitish. The 
general colour of the plumage is blackish brown, much lighter 
on the neck and beneath, all the feathers having two or three 
narrow bars of pale ochreous, much less pure and bright on the 
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