BIRDS—TETRAONIDAE—TETRAO FRANKLINII. 
623 
List of specimens. 
Catal. No. 
Sex. 
Locality. 
Whence obtained. 
478 
Q 
Nova Scotia?_ 
S. F. Baird_ 
479 
$ 
.do. 
G921 
. 9 
Selkirk settlement_ 
D. Gunn.. 
6920 
s 
TETRAO FRANKLINII, Douglas. 
FrankliiBs Grouse. 
Tetrao franklinii, Douglas, Trans. Linn. Soc. XVI, 1829, 139.— Rich. F. Bor. Am. II, 1831, 348 ; pi. lxi. 
Tctrao canadensis, var. Bonap. Am. Orn. Ill, 1830, 47 ; pi. xx. 
? Tetrao fusca, Ord, Guthrie’s Geog. 2d Am. ed. II, 1815, 317. Based on small brown pheasant of Lewis & Clark, 
II, 182, which very probably is this species. 
Sp. Ch. —Similar to T. canadensis, but with the tail feathers entirely black, without orange brown terminal band ; the upper 
tail coverts broadly tipped with white. Wing, 7.35 ; tail, 5.62. 
Hah .—Northern Rocky mountains, and west. 
The only specimens of this species before me are so much mutilated as to preclude any 
accurate description. The difference from canadensis , however, even in these, is sufficiently 
appreciable. This consists chiefly in the rather longer tail with broader feathers, which are pure 
black instead of very dark brown, and entirely without the orange terminal band. The white 
streaks on the scapulars are larger terminally and much more conspicuous, and the upper tail 
coverts are conspicuously barred terminally with white, not seen in the other. The female 
differs from that of canadensis in the white bars at the ends of the tail coverts, and in having 
the tail feathers tipped with whitish instead of orange brown. 
The male of this bird is described and figured by Bonaparte as that of the Canada grouse, 
T. canadensis. 
Middendorff, in his Sibirische Reise, speaks of a grouse as occurring on the southern shores of 
the Sea of Ochotsk, which he considered the same as the North American Tetrao franklini. 
Hartlaub, however, naturally disbelieving a statement so much at variance with what had been 
found to be the law in the distribution of the Gallinacea, made special efforts to procure 
specimens, and, on comparing them with skins of the American T. canadensis and description 
of T. franklini, found that there was a very great difference in the primaries of the Siberian 
bird, to which, in consequence, he gave the name of T. falcipennis. In this the outer five 
primaries are emarginate internally and greatly falcate ; the second and third most so, a 
character scarcely found elsewhere among Gallinacea , except in Penelope. There are many 
differences in color, such as the upper parts being black, spotted finely with brown, and the 
shafts streaked with lighter in falcipennis , instead of plain gray banded with black. Other 
differences might readily be indicated, but those just mentioned are quite sufficient to 
substantiate Dr. Hartlaub’s position. 
