264 BIRD-LIFE OF THE BORDERS 



shaggy, and where its strong shrub-like stalks keep the 

 snow loose and open beneath. 



This habit in the red grouse — (in a country like ours, 

 where heavy snowfalls are few and, at best, but inter- 

 mittent)^ — this habit of instantly burrowing beneath the 

 snow as soon as it is deep enough, is worthy of a 

 moment's consideration. For it appears to indicate in 

 Lagopus scoticus a quality of memory that must arrest 

 attention — a memory that carries the bird back into 

 pre-insular ages, when the habit was vital ; now, it rather 

 resembles a survival. 



The existing grouse of Spitsbergen, Lagopus hemi- 

 leuctirus, lives under conditions precisely reversed — 

 but which conditions, at one period, obtained nearer 

 home. For there, in Spitsbergen, snowfalls are neither 

 few nor intermittent. On the contrary, that race of 

 grouse which has lingered there, enjoys but four months 

 of life in daylight and above ground ; the remaining 

 eight being perforce spent in snow-burrows and tunnels in 

 the dark. But in the Arctic, and throughout Scandinavia, 

 Nature has organised a beautiful provision to meet these 

 cases. For the earlier autumnal snows fall soft and light, 

 easy of excavation ; and are, in fact, already ramified 

 in every direction with grouse-burrows and tunnels long 

 before that subsequent stage when severe frosts shall have 

 indurated its substance and steeled its surface. Beyond 

 that, the grouse have here provided, not merely a winter 

 home, but — more important still- — a full winter's stock of 

 provisions. For these early autumnal snows hold enclosed 

 within their soft and easily excavated recesses, the whole 

 abundant crop of Arctic wild-fruits and berries, "pre- 

 served "for the birds' winter's needs and guarded by the 

 frost-steeled roof above against risk of decay. 



