. A history of British birds . collection, at Upsala, has received the name ofTetrao cremita. Sterile females, which have assumed to agreater or less extent the plumage of the male, are oftenmet with : indeed Mr. Collett, of Christiania, says that hefinds them every winter, and one, obtained on the 18thOctober, 1872, exhibited so striking a resemblance to an oldand fully-coloured male as to be with difficulty distinguishedfrom one. The distinguishing characteristics were thebeard-like feathers on the throat speckled with white, the 56 TETRAONID^. dark bill, and the absence of the large white s
. A history of British birds . collection, at Upsala, has received the name ofTetrao cremita. Sterile females, which have assumed to agreater or less extent the plumage of the male, are oftenmet with : indeed Mr. Collett, of Christiania, says that hefinds them every winter, and one, obtained on the 18thOctober, 1872, exhibited so striking a resemblance to an oldand fully-coloured male as to be with difficulty distinguishedfrom one. The distinguishing characteristics were thebeard-like feathers on the throat speckled with white, the 56 TETRAONID^. dark bill, and the absence of the large white spot of the malebird on the tail, which was finely spotted with greyish-red.*That this sterility is not always a consequence of old age,is proved by the fact that many of these females are youngbirds; but in all those dissected by Nilsson the ovarium wasmore or less diseased ; and the older the female, the closerwas the resemblance she bore to the male. A figure of abarren female of this description is given below from Like many gallinaceous birds, the Capercaillie in confine-ment will breed with other species, and the first result ofthe earliest importation to Braemar was the production of ahybrid between the sole surviving male and a common barn-door Hen. In Mr. Lloyds Game Birds, already cited, * Ornithology of Northern Norway, p. 48.
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsaun, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbirds
