62 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



for in certain individual Grouse in the autumn-winter plumage there is no 

 reliable characteristic in the feathering or in the supraorbital comb (PI. xvi., 

 Figs. 3 and 4), or in any external part of the bird, by which the sex can 

 be distinguished. In most Red Grouse, even in the vast majority, the 

 confusion of sex is not possible, for it is a matter of common knowledge 

 that for a great part of the year the cock and the hen are so wholly 

 unlike one another as to make it difficult for any one who did not know 

 the birds to believe them to be of the same species. Even in the summer 

 months when the cock puts on a plumage closely simulating the breeding 

 plumage of the hen, there is a difference in the general tone and colour, 

 and confusion is not likely. But in the autumn and winter it is com- 

 paratively easy to mistake the sex of some individuals, for when the hen 

 has put on her autumn plumage for the winter, and the cock has put on 

 his winter plumage, certain individuals of opposite sex are then indistinguish- 

 able, even to the practised eyes of the experienced gamekeeper. 



Generally speaking, the feathers of the head and neck give the best 

 indication as to sex in the autumn - winter plumage. In the male the red 

 colouring is, as a rule, far more uniform than in the female. In the male also 

 there is, as a rule, an absence of black markings on these red feathers, except 

 on the upper part of the head, on the crown, and nape of the neck. The 

 cheeks are generally a clean bronze or chestnut-red colour ; so are the feathers 

 of the chin, throat, fore-neck, and upper breast, giving the bird a very 

 rich uniform red colour all over the head and neck. In the hen, as a rule, 

 the whole of the feathers of these parts are crossed by narrow black bars, 

 which five her more of the mottled and broken colouring which the cock bird 

 only begins to assume in the earlj" summer when he puts on the first feathers 

 of his autumn plumage. 



The feathers of the chin are a very useful indication of sex from August to 

 November, practically throughout the shooting season, for the chestnut-red 

 feathers which can be found on the chin of the cock Grouse in every month of 

 the year will be sought for in vain in the hen at this time. Even in December 

 and January they are so imperfectly red as compared with the same red 

 feathers in the male that one may almost say that red feathers are to be 

 found on the chin of the hen only from February to July, when they become 

 conspicuous on account of the contrast in colour with the increasing yellowness 

 of the breeding plumage. These red feathers persist from her previous 



