SPOTTED GROUS. 51 
point, then a narrow one of deep black, and are broadly tipped 
with whitish gray, more or less pure in different specimens; their 
shafts also are brownish rusty. The sides of the head beneath 
the eyes, together with the throat, are deep black with pure white 
spots, the white lying curiously upon the feathers, so as to form a 
band about the middle, continued along the shaft, and spreading 
at the point; but the feathers being small on these parts, the 
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 bright silvery gray: the spurious 
wing and the quills are plain dusky brown, the secondaries b§ing 
slightly tipped and edged externally with paler, and those 
nearest the body somewhat mottled with grayish rusty at the 
