SP. CHAR. _Adult._ Ground-color above brownish-cinereous, palest on the head, purest ashy on the wings, minutely mottled with fine zigzag transverse bars of black, each feather with a medial ragged stripe of the same along the shaft. Inner webs of ear-tufts, outer webs of scapulars, and oval spots occupying most of the outer webs of the two or three lower feathers of the middle and secondary wing-coverts, white, forming (except on the first) conspicuous spots, those of the scapulars bordered with black. Secondaries crossed with about seven regular paler bands, each enclosing a more irregular dusky one; the ground-color, however, is so mottled with grayish, and the pale bands with dusky, that they are by no means sharply defined or conspicuous, though they are very regular; alula and primary coverts more sharply barred with cream-colored spots, those on the former nearly white; primaries with broad quadrate spots of creamy-white on outer webs, these forming from seven (♂) to eight (♀) transverse bands, the last of which is not terminal. Tail more irregularly mottled than the wings, and crossed by seven (♂) to eight (♀) narrow, obsolete, but continuous, pale bands. Eyebrows white, the feathers bordered with dusky (most broadly so in ♂); cheeks, ear-coverts, and lower throat dull white, with transverse bars of blackish (most numerous in the ♂); chin immaculate; upper eyelid dark brown; facial circle black; neck and jugulum like the cheeks, but more strongly barred, and with blackish along the shaft. Ground-color of the lower parts white, each feather with a medial stripe of black, this throwing off distinct bars to the edge of the feather; the medial black is largest on sides of the breast, where it expands into very large conspicuous spots, having a slight rusty exterior suffusion; the abdomen medially, the anal region, and the lower tail-coverts, are almost unvaried white. Tibiæ and tarsi in the male dull white, much barred transversely with blackish; in the female, pale ochraceous, more sparsely barred with dark brownish. Lining of the wing creamy-white, varied only along the edge; light bars on under surface of primaries very obsolete. ♂ (16,027, Fort Crook, North California; John Feilner). Wing, 6.70; tail, 3.80; culmen, .61; tarsus, 1.35; middle toe, .72; ear-tufts, 1.00; wing-formula, 3=4, 5–2, 6, 1=9. “Length, 9.50; extent, 23.75.” ♀ (18,299, Hellgate, Montana; Jno. Pearsall). Wing, 7.80; tail, 4.10; culmen, .70; tarsus, 1.70; middle toe, .80; ear-tufts, 1.00. _Young_ ♂ (No. 29,738, Wood’s Hole, Mass., July 25, 1863; S. F. Baird. “Parent gray”). Secondaries, primaries, and tail, as in the adult, gray plumage; but the latter more mottled, the bands confused. Rest of the plumage everywhere grayish-white, with numerous transverse bars of dusky-brown; eyebrows and lores scarcely variegated dull white; facial circle obsolete.