a. (sb.) Ornith. [f. mod.L. Tetraōnidæ, f. L. tetrao (-ōnem), a. Gr. τετράων, applied by Pliny to the Black Grouse and Capercailye, perh. also to other birds: see -ID3.] Pertaining to the family Tetraonidæ of gallinaceous birds, including the grouse and allied forms; also as sb. a member of this family. (The term has also been used more widely to include the partridges, quails, and other birds.) So Tetraonoid, a. allied in form to the Tetraonidæ; sb. a tetraonoid bird (Funk’s Stand. Dict., 1895); Tetraonine a., belonging to the Tetraoninæ, as a subfamily of the Tetraonidæ: see above and GROUSE sb. 1.
1847. Webster, Tetraonid, a term denoting a bird belonging to the tribe of which the tetrao is the type, as the grouse, partridge, quail, etc.
1862. D. Wilson, Preh. Man, I. iii. 63. The name of the English partridge … is applied to one American tetraonid (Tetrao umbellus), the pheasant … to another, T. cupido.
1868. Huxley, in Proc. Zool. Soc., 14 May, 299. The great series of Galline, Pavonine, Phasianine, and Tetraonine birds.
1885. Newton, in Encycl. Brit., XVIII. 333/1, note. Caccabis lies ‘on the Galline side of the boundary,’ while Perdix belongs to the Tetraonine group.
