238 GALLIFORMES CHAP. 
a white bar on the wing, and white under tail-coverts. The female 
is rufous and buff, barred and spotted with black, and shewing but 
little white. This bird is usually found on broken ground or 
in open woodlands, where it conceals itself among long heath, 
bracken, or grass. The polygamous cocks meet at dawn in spring 
to fight for the hens, parading before them in great excitement 
with depressed outspread tails, while uttering a drumming or 
cooing noise. At other times the call-note is loud and clear. 
The flight is powerful but heavy ; the food includes berries, seeds, 
erain, shoots, buds, and insects. The nest is merely a scantily- 
lined hollow, situated at the foot of a tree, or in heather and the 
like, often near plantations. The six to ten eggs have a yellowish 
ground-colour, with scattered orange-brown blotches, the markings 
being larger than in the Capercaillie. In some winters these Grouse 
allow themselves to be snowed up, as occasionally do other species. 
L. mlokosiewiczi of the Caucasus has the rectrices only slightly 
curved, and black under tail-coverts. Hybrids between the Black 
Cock and the Willow Grouse are called Riporre in Scandinavia. 
Lagopus scoticus, the Red Grouse or Muirfowl, the only bird 
entirely confined to our islands, differs from its congeners in never 
becoming white in winter. It varies considerably in coloration, 
but is usually considered a local form of the Willow Grouse 
(L. albus) of the north of Europe, Asia, and America. The male 
in both summer and winter is more or less chestnut-brown above, 
with black markings and a reddish head; the lower parts are 
similar, but are usually spotted with white. In autumn the brown 
of the upper parts becomes buff, and the lower surface is barred 
with buff and black. Mr. Ogilvie Grant * recognises three types of 
plumage in the male, a red form with no white spots, from Ireland 
and Western Scotland; a blackish variety comparatively rarely 
found ; and another largely spotted with white below or even above. 
Intermediate specimens constitute the bulk of our birds. The 
female exhibits, moreover, a buff-spotted and a buff-barred form ; 
but in summer she is typically black above with concentric buff 
markings, and buff below with black bars. Her autumn plumage, 
which continues throughout the winter, 1s black, spotted with 
buff and barred with rufous. Little need be said of the habits 
of this well-known species, nor will space allow of a description of 
the methods of killing it by driving and so forth; but it may be 
1T. E. Buckley, P.Z.&. 1882, pp. 112-116. ? Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xxii. 1893, p. 36. 
