42 
SHARP TAILED GROUS. 
somewhat tinged with ochraceous exteriorly; the under tail- 
coverts are white, blackish along the shafts, and more or less 
varied with black in different specimens, which also vary con¬ 
siderably as to the size and shape of all the spots, being in some 
more acute, in others more rounded, &c. The wings are eight 
inches long, the third and fourth primaries being the longest; 
the scapulars are uniform with the back, but besides the rusty 
sprinkling of the margins and tip, the largest have narrow band¬ 
like spots of a pure bright rufous, a slight whitish streak along 
the shaft in the centre, and a large white spot at the end. The 
smaller wing-coverts are plain chocolate brown; the spurious 
wing, and outer coverts, are of the same brown, but each feather 
bears at the point a large and very conspicuous pure white spot; 
all the other superior coverts are blackish, sprinkled and banded 
with rusty, each furnished with a conspicuous terminal spot; the 
under wing-coverts, together with the long axillary feathers, are 
pure white, each with a single small dusky spot, and are marbled 
with white and brownish on the outer margin; the quills are plain 
dusky brown, the primaries being regularly marked with pure 
white spots half an inch apart on their outer webs, except at the 
point of the first; the longest feather of the spurious wing, and 
the larger outer coverts have also a pair of these spots : the 
secondaries, besides the outer spots, which assume the appearance 
of bands, are tipped with pure white, forming a narrow terminal 
margin, those nearest the tertials are also slightly marked with 
rusty; the tertials themselves are similar to the scapulars, that 
is, they are black, banded and sprinkled with different shades of 
rusty. The tail is strongly cuneiform and graduated, of eighteen 
feathers, with the middle five inches long, which is three more 
than the outer. According to some accounts, the two middle 
feathers are by more than two inches longer than the adjoining, 
but in all we have examined the difference was little more than 
