RED GROUSE. 317 



tcrials are slightly arranged in a depression on the ground, 

 under shelter of a tuft of heather. Daniel, in his Rural 

 Sports, says, that " on the 5tli of March 1794, the game- 

 keeper of Mr. Lister (now Lord Ribblesdalc) of Gisburne 

 Park, discovered on the manor of Twitten, near Pendle Hill, 

 a brood of Red Grouse, seemingly about ten days old, and 

 which could fly about as many yards at a time ; this was an 

 occurrence never known to have happened before so early in 

 the year." T. H. Sanderson, Esq. also sent me word, in 

 reference to early breeding, that a farmer in burning ling off 

 Shap Fell, burnt over a nest containing fifteen eggs on the 

 twenty-fifth of March 1835. The eggs are from eight to 

 fourteen or fifteen in number, of a reddish white ground 

 colour, nearly covered with blotches and spots of umber 

 brown : the length of the egg one inch nine lines, and one 

 inch three lines in breadth. The female sits very close ; and 

 Mr. Salmon mentions that one allowed him to take her off 

 her eggs. The young brood leave the nest soon after they 

 are freed from the shell, and are attended to by both the 

 parent birds, under whose example they learn to feed on the 

 various vegetable substances by which they are surrounded. 

 The extreme ends of the common ling and fine-leaved hea- 

 ther, with the leaves and berries of the black and red Avortle, 

 and crowberry, and occasionally oats, when grown at the 

 moor side, are the portions and kinds of food most frequently 

 found in their crops. 



The quantity of Red Grouse supplied to the London mar- 

 ket only, could the number be ascertained, must be enor- 

 mous, when it is considered that from the second week in 

 August up to the present time, the end of the first week in 

 March, of every year, the supply is large and constant. The 

 females of the Red Grouse now to be seen in the shops of the 

 London poulterers, March 7th, 1840, have begun to assume 

 the plumage peculiar to the breeding-season. These have 



