PLUMAGE CHANGES OF THE HEN GROUSE 51 



so that by August there are almost no sick cocks ; the hens, on the other 

 hand, have still two very trying months to face, and although, thanks to the 

 abundance of food, probably most of them succeed in struggling through, yet 

 by August they have only just been freed of their more pressing cares and 

 disabilities, and so a very great number are still found to be in very poor 

 condition. The moment the disabilities are removed, however, they begin to 

 recover, and it is this point which has so constantly been overlooked. Sick 

 birds in August are convalescent, and however many there may be, it is not 

 a sign of a new outbreak of disease, but a sign that the past spring infection 

 was a heavy one, though less fatal than it might have been. 



At the end of their own specially critical periods, the cocks have at 

 any rate June, July, August, and September in which to pull themselves 

 together by means of good food assisted by good weather ; whereas the hens, 

 at the end of their own specially critical period, have August and September. 

 Hence the preponderance of sick-looking hens when the shooting begins, 

 and the widespread, but erroneous, belief in a recrudescence of disease in 

 autumn. 



To return to the further consideration of the hen's change of plumage in 

 September, her finest feature is now undoubtedly the clean new growth of 

 bright red, or dark red or even black and white-flecked feathers of 

 the breast and abdomen, with their narrow but even blacker markings. 

 The whole of the feathers of this tract have now been shed, but they grow 

 again so quickly that no bare skin is visible save in the middle area of the 

 abdomen quite low down, where, as has been already pointed out, the new 

 growth is of belated feathers coloured as in the spring plumage, and therefore 

 quite difi"erent from those around them. There is still, as a rule, no accession 

 of new red feathers on the chin or throat of the healthy September hen, or at 

 the most but a feather or two. But in the sick hen there is still often a 

 sprinkling of the old red feathers of the preceding autumn plumage, very 

 faded, amongst the faded buff and black feathers of the belated spring 

 plumage. On the back of even forward hens there is still a mixture of old 

 and new plumage, and the scapulars are often faded to something like black 

 and white, and are badly frayed at the ends. The wings have now almost 

 completed their moult, but there may still be a primary or two to change, 

 even in very forward birds. The legs and feet are rapidly becoming feathered 

 for the winter, though in backward birds which have been sick they are 



