SHARP-TAILED GROUS. 45 
mark in the middle; the lower tail-coverts and the femorals are 
entirely destitute of black. All the upper parts, viz. the back, 
rump, upper tail-coverts, and scapulars, have a uniform mottled 
appearance of black and rusty, each feather being black with 
rusty shafts, spots, bands, or margins, the rusty again minutely 
dotted with black: on the rump, but especially on the tail-coverts, 
the rusty predominates in such a manner that each feather 
becomes first banded with black and rusty, then decidedly rusty 
varied with black, which however does not change in the least 
the general effect. The wing-coverts are dusky, each with a 
• 
large round white spot at tip, the inner gradually taking the 
markings of the back and scapulars; the lining of the shoulder 
is plain dusky, as well as the spurious wing and the primaries, 
each feather of the spurious wing having about five large round 
spots of white on its outer web; the primaries are regularly 
marked on the 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 continued 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 scapulars, 
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, 
VOL. III.—M 
