362 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Although satisfied with one mate the cock Grouse will fight 

 even after he has paired, but as in other species the sexual spars 

 are not serious. In winter the bird is gregarious, but the packs 

 do not "jug" close together like Partridges, and by the end 

 of March they have mostly broken up. The nest is a simple 

 hollow in the ground, often sheltered by ling or other plants, 

 and lined with a few sprigs of heather and dry grass. Seven 

 to ten, or even more, richly coloured red or yellowish eggs, 

 closely mottled and blotched with reddish brown (Plate 154), 

 are laid late in April or in May, the date varying according 

 to the severity of the season. The colour is at first " loose," 

 and smeared eggs are not uncommon. " Cheepers," clothed 

 in mottled and streaked yellowish brown and chestnut down, 

 rapidly get the power of short-distance flight, and when no 

 bigger than thrushes will whirr for a few yards after their 

 parents, but soon learn that there is safety in remaining still 

 (Plate 158;. 



Authorities difter, not always amiably, about the moults and 

 plumages of the variable Red Grouse, for the subject is some- 

 what complicated by local variation. The periods of the two 

 moults differ in the male and female. The male has a winter 

 dress, in which he breeds, complete about the end of November 

 and replaced by a summer dress in June ; the female is in 

 summer plumage in April, and in winter or autumn dress in 

 August. These times vary greatly according to the health of 

 the birds ; disease delays the moults, but apart from this Dr. 

 E. A. Wilson found that almost every bird shows more or less 

 sign of another season's dress. 



The feathers on legs and toes are thin and worn in summer, 

 but are thick and long after the autumnal moult. Ogilvie- 

 Grant groups the more general forms or types of colour 

 variation ; in the male he finds red, black, and white spotted 

 forms, and in the female two others, buff barred and buff spotted 

 types, the last being the most frequent. The typical winter and 



