8 FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS. 



the neck is mottled with blackish and speckled grey 

 feathers, a few being marked with bars of black and 

 yellow ; the breast, back, and upper tail-feathers speckled 

 grey, the under ones black ; the wings, under surface of 

 the body, and legs white. The length of the male is about 

 fifteen inches. The female is smaller, and, like the male, 

 is white in winter, but lacks the black feathers before 

 and behind the eye. By the end of April the female has 

 assumed as much mixture of feather barred with black and 

 yellow as the male has of grey. The length of the female 

 is fourteen and a-half inches. The young birds when first 

 hatched are covered with down of a light yellow colour, 

 and when fledged are very similar in appearance to the 

 young of the Red Grouse. Like the adult birds, however, 

 they assume the white plumage in winter^ y 



