550 THE RED GROUSE OR BROWN PTARMIGAN. 



immediately calls and all take wing, as Burns says in his lines 

 to "Peggy"— 



" Now westlin' winds and slaughtering guns 

 Bring autumn's pleasant weather ; 

 The moorcock springs on whirring wings 

 Amang the blooming heather." 



In black grouse it is the hen gives the alarm, although at the 

 first of the slaughter season, on August 20th, she sits so close as 

 to be often taken by the hand from a bunch of heath or 

 brackens, missing the warning of the male— being one drawback 

 to polygamy, and an inducement in revenge to lay her eggs on 

 the grave of some noted sportsman, as Burns says of " Tarn 

 Samson" — 



" There low he lies, in lasting rest ; 

 Perhaps upon his mouldering breast 

 Some spitefu' moorfowl bigs her nest, 



To hatch and breed ; 

 Alas ! nae niair he'll them molest ! 



Tarn Samson's dead !" 



The male red grouse remains with the brood (or what is left of 

 them) till the end of autumn, after which they " pack," or 

 assemble in flocks, and become very wild, not easily shot. 

 Unlike the black grouse, too, it is easily domesticated, and 

 breeds in an aviary. Its food is the tops of heath, the fruit of 

 the crowberry, trailing arbutus, and cranberry, seeds, and 

 insects, and if corn be growing near the heather there will the 

 " red grouse" be. (Like the prairie hen of Kentucky, at one time 

 so abundant in America that children were constantly employed 

 to prevent its depredations on the cultivated fields, where not 

 one is now to be seen.) Though a true lagopus it is best known 

 by its old name of red grouse. Although its wings and tail are 

 short, they are broad and rounded, enabling it to fly with great 

 speed and force by rapid beats. As a proof, in 1892, as a 

 shepherd was walking up Glenshellach he was struck on the 

 breast by a wounded grouse with such force that he was knocked 

 off his feet and lay for a time stunned. A girl came down the 

 same glen a few days after with a large tin pail in her hand, the 

 pail was so severely struck by a wounded wild duck that the 

 duck fell dead, and indented the pail as if struck by a heavy 

 hammer. The girl was swung round and knocked off her feet, 

 but falling on the heather was . not hurt. On computation, the 

 late Professor Fleemin Jenkin, who was staying in Inchree 

 House at the time, said, the duck (about 3 lbs. weight), flying at 



