130 BIRDS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. 



The food is the same as in the case of the last. 



Red Grouse. — The general colour of this bird is reddish 

 brown, with numerous black markinf:;s all over its person, 

 and a few white ones on the breast and wing coverts. 

 There is also a very small white moustache ; and a white 

 ring surrounds each eye, the upper one being surmounted 

 with a red mark ; the bill is dark horn ; and legs and feet 

 are encased in a thick covering of white, hair-like feathers, 

 which also prevail on the thighs ; the nails are greyish 

 black. Length, 1 foot 4^ inches. The female is consider- 

 ably smaller. 



The red grouse has the distinction of being the only 

 exclusively British bird known ; a certain number of them 

 occur in Ireland, more especially in the Wicklow Moun- 

 tains ; but these have almost certainly been introduced. 

 All attempts to acclimatise it in other countries have 

 failed, and yet it can be kept pretty well in confinement, 

 and will sometimes breed freely in an aviary. 



The food consists for the most part of the tops and 

 tender shoots of heather, and, no doubt, such insects, 

 chiefly coleopterous, and ants, as abound in the localities it 

 frequents. 



Red Grouse are monogamous, at least for the most part ; 

 both parents attend to the young, though the duty of 

 incubation is performed by the female only, who sits ver}' 

 closely, and has even suffered herself to be taken in the 

 hand rather than desert her charge. 



A slight hollow among the heather serves for a nest, and 

 there from seven to eleven eggs, of different shades of 

 yellowish brown, spotted and speckled with darker brown, 

 are deposited, incubation lasting nearly four weeks ; the 

 young are able to run about at once, and at first feed 

 mainly on ants and their eggs. 



