196 BIRDS OF LANCASHIRE. 



valleys elsewhere. The Eed Grouse does not take 

 kmdly to confinement, but Montagu records an mstance 

 in which a i^air bred in the aviary at Knowsley. He 

 says (" Orn. Dictionary, Sui)p.," 1813), " Lord Stanley 

 assures us that a pair of Grous which had been con- 

 fined two years, by a person who paid little attention to 

 them, had produced many eggs. This circumstance 

 made his Lordship desirous to obtain the birds, in which 

 he succeeded, and that last year (1811) the female laid 

 ten eggs, which she incubated, and brought out eight 

 young. These infant birds, from some unknown cause, 

 probably a defect of natural food at that tender age, did 

 not live many days. The old birds feed on grain and 

 oatmeal, like others of the gallinaceous tribe. They 

 are still remarkably shy, and are as little disturbed as 

 possible, in order to induce them to breed again. . . 

 A mottled brown and white variety, very much re- 

 sembling the summer plumage of the Ptarmigan, was 

 shot in Lancashire, in the month of August (Lord 

 Stanley)." Dr. Skaife, who {Maa. Nat. Hist., 1837) 

 remarks on a male Eed Grouse, which was kept in a 

 state of domestication by a gamekeeper of Mr. Joseph 

 Feilden, of Witton House, near Blackburn, for six years, 

 fresh ling being supplied for its use every day or two, 

 also notes some curious variations of plumage in four 

 specimens which he examined. He writes {Man. -Vr/Y. 

 Hist., 1838), " The first was of a pure cream colour 

 throughout, without spot or shade ; the ground colour 

 of the second was of the same dusky hue, but the bird 

 was freckled and marked throughout with spots and 

 streaks of light brown ; the other two birds had the 

 usual plumage of the Grouse, except that the wings 

 were white. These birds were all shot out of the same 

 covey or pack that season, on the moorlands east of 



