THE RED GROUSE. 9 



Pheasant, and lias also been known to breed with the domestic fowl. In these 

 instances the Black-cock is sometimes the parent of the hybrid, and at other 

 times the Grey-hen. There is no record of any of the hybrids thus produced 

 being fertile, although some of them, such as the produce of the domestic fowl, 

 have been said to produce eggs. Barren Grey-hens not unfrequently assume, in 

 part at any rate, the plumage of the other sex. 



Family TE TRA ONID/E. 



THE RED GROUSE. 



Lagopm scoticus, LATH. 



Red Grouse has the remarkable distinction of being the only bird that 

 is exclusively British ; it occurs throughout the greater part of the British 

 Islands, where there is moorland adapted to its habits and mode of life, but is not 

 found in England south of Derbyshire. In the northern parts of Europe and 

 America it is represented by a closely allied species known as the Willow Grouse, 

 L. albus, and, unlike the Black-cock, is found on most of the moorlands and peat 

 bogs of Ireland, although less abundantly than in Scotland. 



The plumage of the Red Grouse varies very considerably in different districts 

 and under different circumstances. It may be described generally as reddish-brown 

 on the head and neck, and much darker on the body and the breast. The feathers 

 on the abdomen are tipped with white, and in many cases a considerable proportion 

 of white extends over the breast and other parts of the plumage. The legs are 

 covered to the claws with hair- like feathers, of a dirty white colour, and the length 

 of the bird is about five-and-a-half inches. Lord Lilford, in his coloured illus- 

 trations of British Birds, truly remarks that the plumage in different localities 

 varies so greatly, that to attempt to figure even a few of them would exceed any 

 reasonable limits. The female differs from the male in being lighter in colour, 



VOL. V. 



