OF THE BEITISH ISLANDS. 35 



Family TETEAONHLE. Genus LAGOPUS. 



RED GROUSE. 



LAGOPUS SCOTICUS (Latham). 

 PLATE VI. 



Tetrao scoticus, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl. i. p. 290 (1787 ex Brissori) ; Seebohm, Hist. 

 Brit. B. ii. p. 428 (1884) ; Seebohm, Col. Fig. Eggs Brit. B. p. 272, pi. 59 (1896). 



Lagopus scoticus (Lath.), Macgill. Brit. B. i. p. 169 (1837) ; Dresser, B. Eur. vii. 

 p. 165, pi. 479 (1873) ; Yarrell, Brit. B. ed. 4, iii. p. 73 (1883) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. 

 Brit. B. pt. xviii. (1891) ; Dixon, Nests and Eggs Brit. B. p. 362 (1893) ; Grant, 

 Cat. B Brit. Mus. xxii. p. 35 (1893) ; Sharpe, Handb. B. Gt. Brit. iv. p. 263 

 (1897). 



Geographical distribution. British : The Ked Grouse is confined 

 to the British Islands, where it inhabits the wild moorland districts throughout 

 Great Britain and Ireland, except those counties of England that lie south and 

 east of a line drawn from Bristol to Hull. Although inhabiting the Hebrides and 

 the Orkneys, it is absent from the Shetlands. Foreign : No extra-British 

 distribution. 



Allied forms. Lagopus albus, the continental representative of the Eed 

 Grouse, an inhabitant of the tundras above the pine region in the willow and 

 birch zones of Arctic Europe, Asia and America. Differs from the Eed Grouse 

 in having a white winter dress, and in having the primaries and secondaries white 

 at all seasons. 



Habits. British sportsmen may well pride themselves upon the exclusive 

 possession of such a thorough Game Bird and true sport-furnishing species as the 

 Eed Grouse or Moor Fowl. It is one of the most sedentary of Game Birds, and 

 never wanders from its native heath except under very exceptional circumstances. 

 The great haunts of the Eed Grouse are the vast expanses of heath-clothed waste 

 that stretch in almost one unbroken line from Wales to the Orkneys and Shet- 

 lands. This district is wild and romantic enough, and the great diversity of its 

 physical aspect counteracts the impression of monotony that the sameness of 

 the vegetation which clothes them is apt to inspire. Hills and dales, vast plateaux, 

 swamps, lakes, and streams, ridges and peaks break the surface of the moors, and 

 patches of coarse grass, dense fields of rushes and sedges, of bracken and gorse, 

 and clumps of broom and mountain ground fruits relieve the monotony of the 

 otherwise interminable stretches of heath and ling. Here, all the year round, the 



