194 BLACK GROUSE. 
and on the sides speckled with white, and covered behind 
with rounded scales; toes, rather small, brownish black, bare 
of feathers, and with lateral fringes; the first is very small, 
the second and fourth nearly equal, the third much longer, 
the front ones connected by short scaly membranes; on the 
first toe there are ten, on the second eighteen, on the third 
thirty, on the fourth twenty-two, narrow plates. Claws, 
blackish brown. 
The female, called the Grey Hen, is in weight about two 
pounds; length, one foot five or six inches: bill, brown; 
iris, hazel, over the eye there is a narrow red mark; head, 
crown, neck on the back, and nape, yellowish red, barred 
with brownish black, each feather on the head with three, 
and on the neck with four bars of the latter; chin, throat, 
and breast, yellowish red, barred with brownish black, the 
bars larger and curved, the ends greyish white, the sides 
more red; below it is greyish white, barred with black and 
brown; the back above, yellowish red, more broadly barred, 
the last bar forming a pointed patch; on the lower part it 
is of a deeper red, barred with brownish black. 
The wings have a tuft of white feathers at the bend, as 
in the male; they expand to the width of two feet seven 
inches; greater wing coverts, greyish brown, their edges mottled 
with red, the middle ones tipped with white; primaries, greyish 
brown, also mottled on their edges with red; secondaries, 
greyish brown, more widely mottled with red, and undulated, 
and their tips white. The tail, very short, has the four outer 
feathers a little longer than the others, but almost straight, 
the tip greyish white; upper tail coverts, also darker yellowish 
red, conspicuously barred with brownish black; under tail 
coverts, greyish white, partially marked with irregular patches 
of brown and red along the centre towards the end. Legs, 
greyish white, obscurely mottled with reddish and blackish; | 
toes and claws, brown. 
The young do not entirely lose their early plumage till 
towards the following year. 
In a considerable number of instances this species has been 
known to pair with the Pheasant, in a few with the Red 
Grouse, and in one with the Common Fowl; also with the 
Capercaillie, and, though very rarely, with the Ptarmigan. 
In some instances the female has assumed to a considerable 
extent the plumage of the male. Sir William Jardine men- 
tions one, shot by the late Sir Sidney Beckwith, entirely of 
