assigned, as the nearest place they are known to inhabit®
the south of Wales; a distance', in a straight line, not less
than sixty miles.”
The Red -Grouse, like the Capercaillie and the Black
Grouse, will live and breed in confinement, and some that I
have seen have become remarkably tame.
Daniel mentions that they “ had been known to fiieéd in
the menagerie of the late Duchess-dowager of Portland, and
that this was in some measure effected by her Grace’s'causing
fresh pots of ling or . heath, to be placed in the ménagérie
almost every day. At Mr. Grierson’s, Rathfamham Housif
County of Dublin, in the season of 1802, a brace \>f Grouse-,/
which had been keptifor three years, hatched a brood of young
ones. In 1809 Mr. William Routledge, of Oakshaw, in
Bewcastle, Cumberland, had in his .^possession a pair of Red
Grouse, completely domesticated ; and which had-fs© far forgotten
their natural food, as to prefer corn and crumbs o f
bread, to the tops and seeds of heath. The hen laid twelfp
eggs, but from some cause was not suffered to hatch them ;
or, in all probability, the young brood would have been
équally as tame as their-parents.”
In 1811 a pair of Red Grouse bred in the 'aviary at
Knowsley'; the female laid ten eggs, and hatched out eight
young birds; but these, from.sPmp unknown ëa^ë,* did * n ot"
live many days. Earl Derby, then Lord Stanley^ also, communicated
to Colonel Montagii the occurrence )of a mottled
brown and white'variety of* the Red Grouse,- very much resembling
the Ptarmigan when in ’ rfs summer plumage, which
was shot in Lancashire in the month of'August.
A male bird of the year, killed in December, has the beak
black; the irides hazel, with a crescentic page of "vermilion
red skin over the eye, fringed at its upper free edge ;- head
and neck reddish brown,, but more rufous than any-other part
of the b ird ; back, wing, and tail-coverts, chestnut brown,
barred transversely and speckled with black; distributed
among the plumage are several feathers in which the ground
colour is of a bright yqjlowish brown; all the quill-feathers
dark umber brown; the secondaries and the tertials edged on
the outside, and freckled with lighter brown; the tail of eighteen
feathers zlJmk seven on each putside dark umber brown ; the
four middle feathers chestnut brown, varied with black. On
't^e .breast the plumage is darker than on the*,sides, almost
black, and tipped with ..white ; tfie chestnut brown feathers on
tj^e;.|ides, flanks, belly, vent, and under fail-cpverts, tipped
with white T legs and t,oes cover‘ed>'faith short greyish white
fe&j^iers'; claws long,’bluish-horn colour at the base, nearly
w h |||.a t the~end.
,The whole length.'sixteep inchejs. From the carpal joint
to,'the: end of theming,- eight <^^sV^nd|Mreereighths: the
firs|: quill-feather shorter than the ;sixth, but longer than the.
seventh ; Hhe|§g€0nd shorter than the fifth, but longer than
the sixth ; the third and fourth nearly equal -in length, and
thejongesjt in the wing.
The old male_ in summer has m,any t»f the body feathers
tippgd with ygjpwi and the red colour isp f a lighter tint.
The femal^S rather smaller than the male k^he patch of
red skin over th^yc&is also smaller ; the red and brown tints
of the feathere^re lighter in colpiir, and ffi|jfe a more variegated
appearap.ee jto, the plumage generally. In her summer
plumage. .all the feathers of the head and upper part of the
neck,1 are yellowish chestnut, with a few. black spots: those
of the lower neck, breast, back, wing, and tail-coverts, and
middle tail-feathers, transversely barred with black, and tipped
with yellow; tfie longqfeathers on the sides and flanks also
barred across with black and'yellow, very much resembling the
feathers ^borne .on the-same parts at ,.thp same season by the
female Ptarmigan, showing;;its affinity to that bird: and
some authors have called pur Red Grouse, the Red Grouse
Ptarmigan, .tfgRed Ptarmigan, and the Brown Ptarmigan.
VOL. I I. Y