74 TETRAONIDÆ.
•Wings short, concave, with the third and fourth feathers the longest. Tail of
sixteen feathers* generally square at the end. Tarsi and toes completely
feathered ; hind toe very short, and barely touching the ground with the tip off
the nail. Nails long, and nearly straight.
T h is handsome species is the British representative of, the®
Willow-Grouse (Lagopus albus), which ranges from Norway I
across the entire continents of Europe, Asia, and North I
America. There can he little question that both species are I
sprung from a common stock, and that our bird is an 1
example of an insular form which is found nowhere else in I
a natural state.* It is the only one of the genus Lag,opmm
which does not turn white in winter, and it differs slightly '1
from Its nearest ally ip its summer d re ssin its call-mofcej®
and in some of its habits; hut no structural differences I
between the two species have':a | yet been discovered. Tin- f
remains of what may fairly be considered as the ancestor of®
these two forms have been found in th^ bone-caves of the j
south of France and also;in Germany; and the Editor J
possesses an example of the Willow-Grouse assuming the®
summer garb, which was obtained in May as far south as 1
the neighbourhood of Tiflis, in the Caucasus. . TheSHed1
Grouse is probably an isolated descendant which has lost®
the power of turning white with the passing away,, of the®
necessity for doing so for the purposes of assimilation.
In Scotland, whence its specific, name is derived, it .is®
generally distributed over all the moors from the highest ®
point where the ling {-Callima) and the heath ^Ericay^
flourish, down to the pg^sMiim.. J i j i | also found on Lewis, ®
Harris, North. and South .JJisty Barra, and some of^tbe®
smaller islands'""of''the Outer Hebrides, and is tolerably j
abundant in. Islay,- Skye, Rum, and Jura, but is scarce in®
Mufi* Remarkably fine birds are produced in the Orkneys, 9
although not in large numbers; but in the not far distant 1
Shotlands it is not indigenous, and the few introduced birds I
have failed to maintain themselves there-. The low Sandy S
* AHout fourteen ye&s ago Mr. Oscar Dickson successluily mtrodiiced th is®
species into the dist^ctobf Gottenberg,. Southern Sweden, corresponding I S
latitude with Aberdeen.
THE RED GROUSE. 75
heaths of the eastern portions of Scotland are less suitable
to its tastes than the north and west, but there is not a
county (unléss Clackmannan prove an exception) which
cannot «lawn the Red Grouse as an.inhabitant. Across the
border it is found on the moors of all the northern counties,
especially on those of Yorkshire aud Derbyshire, down the
backbone of England as far as thé Trent, particularly
between 1,000 and 1,500 feet of elevation; westwards it
occurs in Lancashire, Cheshire,- Staffordshire, Shropshire,
and on most of the Welsh moors down to Glamorgan.
Beyond these lines the Red .Grouse, although introduced on
the heaths of Surrey and elsewhere, has never succeeded in
maintaining itself, and Montagu records with surprise the
occurrence of a straggler taken alive near Weohampton, in
Wiltshire, in the winter of 1794.
On the moorlands and peat-bogs of Ireland it is generally
distributed, although, from want of preservation, not in such •
abundance as in Scotland and the north of England.
The Red Grouse pair very early in spring, and the female
soon goes to nest: this is formed of the stems of ling
and grass, with occasionally a very few feathers : these
materials being slightly arranged in a dépression' on the
ground, under shelter of a tuft-of heather. Daniel, in his
‘Rural Sports,’ says that “ on the 5th of March,«#794;
the gamekeeper of Mr. Lister (afterwards Lord Ribblesdale),
of Gisbume Park,* discovered on the manor of TMtfpn, near
Pendle Hill, a brood of Red Grouse, seemingly about ten
days old, and which could fly about as many yards at a
time; this was an occurrence never known to have hàppened
before so early in the year.”
Thompson (Birds ?bf. Ireland, iip* p. 49) mentions a
nest containing eleven eggs on the Belfast Mountains on
17th March. A farmer in burning ling off Shàp Fell, burnt
over a nest containing fifteen -eggs ; on; the 25th of March,
1835. The eggs , are from eight .to fourteen or fifteen un-
number, of a reddish-white ground colour, nearly covered
with blotches and spots of. umber brown : measuring about
1*75 by 1*2 in. The female sits .very close.; and Mr.