428 BRITISH BIRDS. 
TETRAO SCOTICUS. 
RED GROUSE. 
(PiatTEe 20.) 
Lagopus bonasa scotica, Briss. Orn. i. p. 199 (1760). 
Tetrao scoticus, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. i. p. 290 (1787); et auctorum plurimorum 
—Temminck, ( Vieillot), (Degland § Gerbe), (Dresser), (Saunders), &c. 
Tetrao lagopus, var. y, Gimel, Syst. Nat. ii. p. 750 (1788). 
Lagopus scoticus (Briss.), Leach, Syst. Cat. Mamm. &c. Brit. Mus. p. 27 (1816). 
Oreias scoticus (Briss.), Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 177 (1829). 
Tetrao saliceti scoticus (Briss.), Schlegel, Rev. Crit. pp. Ixxvi, 89 (1844). 
The Red Grouse, or, as it is locally called, the Moor-fowl, Brown Ptar- 
migan, or Gor-cock, is, par excellence, the national bird of Great Britain, 
being the only species which is only found in the British Islands. It is a 
resident bird, and is found on all extensive moorlands throughout Great 
Britain and Ireland, except in those counties of England which lie south 
or east of a line drawn from Bristol to Hull. It is found throughout 
the Hebrides and the Orkneys, but does not occur on Shetland. On 
the continent the Red Grouse is represented by the Willow-Grouse 
(Tetrao albus), which differs from its British ally in assuming, like the 
Ptarmigan, a white winter plumage, which is retained on the primary and 
secondary wing-feathers at all seasons of the year. The Willow-Grouse is 
a circumpolar -bird, inhabiting the arctic tundras of Europe, Asia, and 
America above the pine-regions* ; but, unlike its British representative, 
it is very fond of perching in trees, especially preferring to roost in them, 
and is only found where birch or willows occur. 
The Red Grouse is confined to the moors, which are hilly tracts of 
country, for the most part peat and rock, the former profusely covered 
with ling. They abound in springs, which form mountain-streams in the 
lower gorges, or produce bogs in the wider valleys and plateaux, where the 
ling is often overpowered with a rank growth of rushes, carices, and coarse 
erasses. The rocks are often millstone grit, and sometimes are huge 
isolated masses, but in Yorkshire generally appear as a range of perpen- 
dicular cliffs locally called “edges.” The peaks and ridges above these 
* Howard Saunders has an example of this bird from the Caucasus. The evidence in 
fayour of its having been shot in the district, and not been imported in a frozen state from 
the north, appears to be incontestable, were it not for the fact that the alleged date can 
scarcely be true. It is labelled May; but as many of the white feathers are in the pen, 
it must have been killed in late autumn. 
