. The Canadian field-naturalist. Natural history; Sciences naturelles. 2005 Lumsden: Plumage and Internal Morphology of "Praire Grouse" 523 Prairie Chickens have dusky orange toes during the breeding season. In Sharp-tailed Grouse, they are grey. Hybrids varied from orange through yellowish orange, to yellowish-grey to grey coloured feet. All these Prairie Grouse seem to molt the pectinations of their toes in mid-April and the displaying males, toward the end of the display period, show considerable wear on their nails. Discussion The hybrid indices summarized in Tables 1-4, 6-7 sugg
. The Canadian field-naturalist. Natural history; Sciences naturelles. 2005 Lumsden: Plumage and Internal Morphology of "Praire Grouse" 523 Prairie Chickens have dusky orange toes during the breeding season. In Sharp-tailed Grouse, they are grey. Hybrids varied from orange through yellowish orange, to yellowish-grey to grey coloured feet. All these Prairie Grouse seem to molt the pectinations of their toes in mid-April and the displaying males, toward the end of the display period, show considerable wear on their nails. Discussion The hybrid indices summarized in Tables 1-4, 6-7 suggested that the proportion of hybrids in the Mani- toulin population was between 32% and 60%. Certain features of the pinnae and tail suggest that hybridiza- tion may have been more extensive than this. Unex- pected in the morphology of the Manitoulin Prairie Grouse was the relatively short pinnae of the popula- tion. That none reached the mean length of mm of Wisconsin Prairie Chickens was a surprise. The longest measured 75 mm. Genetically, the Manitoulin birds are descended from the Wisconsin stock, 20 to 30 years before this study began and several hundred kilometres removed. This strongly suggests that hybridization on the island was more extensive than indicated by the other hybrid indices. The line pattern on the tail of Northern Sharp-tailed Grouse was missing in a propor- tion 4 or 5 times that expected of Sharp-tailed-type Manitoulin Grouse. Perhaps it is not unexpected that 93% of those classified as hybrids should lack the line pattern. This feature is a secondary sexual character that may be more readily modified by hybridization than primary characters. The steep graduation of the tail occurs in both sexes of Sharp-tailed Grouse and is therefore not a secondary sexual character. The trends in measurements do not completely conform to the pattern shown in other char- acters. One might expect that in Class 5 (Table 4) in 1964-1970 the influence of Prairie Sharp-
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