Orkneys, where disease is unknown, and the winters are
open, was nearly 30 ounces. Unlike its Scandinavian congener
the Willow-Grouse, the Red Grouse seldom perches in
trees. Mr. H. Seebohm has only once seen one alight in a
wood after a flight, remaining for a short time with its wings
half expanded, and apparently not at all at its ease; but Mr.
L. Lloyd cites (Game Birds of Sweden, p. 126) an instance of
several birds, unmistakably of this species, being observed
in an ash-tree on the edge of a moor in Ayrshire; and Sir
John Crewe states (Gould’s Birds of Great Britain) that on
one occasion not less than five brace were observed in an old
thorn-tree; the autumn being the season when this habit as
most noticed, and the larch .the tree preferred. They are
frequently seen to sit on dykes and stone-walls.
The Bed Grouse, like the Capercaillie and the Black
Grouse, will live and breed in confinement, and some have
become remarkably tame. Daniel mentions (Bural Sports)
that they “ had been known to breed 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 btf
ling or heath to be placed in the menagerie almosteevery
day. At Mr. Grierson’s, Bathfarnham House, county of
Dublin, in the season of 1802, a brace of Grouse, which had
been.kept for three-years, hatched a brood of young, ones. In
1809, Mr. William Boutledge, of Oakshaw, in Bewcastle,
Cumberland, had in his possession a. paar of Bed Grouse
completely domesticated, and which had so far forgotten
their natural food as to prefer corn and crumbs of bread to
the tops and seeds of heath. I The hen laid. twelve eggs,
but from some cause was not suffered .to hatch them; or, in
all probability, the young brood would havÉlbeen equally as
tame as their parents.” In 1811, a-pair of Bed Grouse
bred in the aviary at Knowsley ; the female laid ten eggs,
and hatched out eight:young birds; but.these, from some
unknown cause, did-not live many days. In 1866 a brood
was hatched in the gaol at Omagh, and other instances are
on record.
Owing to preservation, and the reduction or extirpation of
their natural enemies, Bed Grouse had enormously increased
prior to the time when the Grouse-disease shewed itself, and
made terrible ravages on some of the moors which had previously
been amongst the best stocked. It has' been ascribed
to various causes, most of' which have in all probability had
a share in contributing to its development, and each of
which, to the exclusion of all others, has found its violent
partisans. The immediate cause in specimens examined by
Dr. Spencer Cobbold would seem to have been the presence in
extraordinary numbers of two sets of entozoic parasites, both
flat and round, the existence-of which in small numbers may
be compatible with health, whilst emaciation and death result
from their supremacy. '"Bad-weather, and the nipping of the
young shoots of the heather by a late frost, or its injudicious
burning, also tend to: weaken the systems of the birds.^
It is not desirable to enter i-nto details respecting Grouse-
shooting, but as the number 'of ~ this 'species bagged' inra
single day exceeds that'of any other - game-bird, a few facts
may be given. The 'largest bag on record was made by
Lord Walsingham at Blübbèrhouses in Yorkshire, on the
28th August, 1872, when he killed 842 Grouse in - one day
to his own gun, and under somewhat unfavourable circumstances.
In the same' year, on the Wemmëfgill AIoors; in
the North Biding of Yorkshire, Mr. B. A. Milbank, M.P.,
in six days, and with an average of six companions, killed
8,988J brace, or nearly 8,000 birds. The largest bag over
dogs was made by the Maharajah Duleep Singh- at Grand-
tully, Perthshire, oti the 12th 1 August; 1 8 7 1 when 220
brace of fairly-grown Grouse and no “ cheepers ’:’ were shot ;
and on the 14th,fliO brace of Grouse over one bracé of dogs
in six hours, f
A male bird ofr the year, killed' in December, had the
beak black; the irides hazel, with a crescentic -patch effi
vermilion red skin oyer the eye, fringed at its upper free
edge ; head and neck reddish-brown* but more rufous than
any other part of the bird ; 'back, whig, and tail-coverts,-
ehestnut-brown, barred transversely and speckled with
è i f Harvie-Brown, Zo$K’r®882/ pf 4'01. f Rural Almanac, 1881, p. 21s