jo BRITISH BIRDS, WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



smaller, and the plumage being yellowish-brown, barred with a darker colour. 

 The young birds complete their moult and assume their full adult plumage in the 

 first autumn, although in winter they show more white about their lower breasts 

 than the adults. 



The variations in the plumage of the Red Grouse and the seasonal changes 

 in both sexes have been more carefully investigated by Mr. Ogilvie Grant, than 

 b}- any other observer. His most recent observations have been published and 

 illustrated by coloured plates in the "Annals of Scottish Natural History" for 

 1894. A brief resume of these important observations will be acceptable. Mr. 

 Grant asserts that the Red Grouse is one of the most variable of all birds in 

 existence. He recognizes three forms in the male which he describes as red, black 

 and white spotted, and in .the females no less than five distinct types are recog- 

 nizable, which he individualizes as the red, black, white spotted, buff spotted and 

 buff barred. The great peculiarity of the Red Grouse, one which has no parallel 

 among birds in the genus, arises from the changes of the plumage in the male 

 and female occurring at different seasons. Mr. Grant writes : 



" The male has no distinct summer plumage, but has distinct autumn and 

 winter plumages, and retains the latter throughout the breeding season. 



The female has a distinct summer plumage, which is complete by the end of 

 April or beginning of May ; also a distinct autumn plumage, which is retained 

 till the following spring. 



To put it more concisely, both male and female have two distinct moults 

 during the year, but in the male they occur in autumn and winter, and in the 

 female in summer and autumn, the former having no distinct summer, and the 

 latter no distinct winter plumage." 



As is well known, the Grouse is exclusively a moorland bird, and is so much 

 valued as a Game bird that it is in all cases most strictly preserved, the shooting 

 on the moors where they are abundant letting for very high sums. 



The Red Grouse feeds chiefly on the tops of a common species of heath, and 

 occasionally those of sedges and grasses, and other plants. Near cultivated land 

 it will eat oats, and occasionally may be shot with the crop full of that grain, but 

 its chief food is the fresh tops of the heather, which it selects as it walks along 

 the heath, breaking off the little tips half-an-inch in length, so that the crops are 

 filled with some hundreds. These are ground up in the gizzard with fragments 

 of white quartz rock. The grouse is usually secluded among the heather, seldom 

 rising until it is closely approached by man. Even when pursued by a dog, it 

 will run some distance and then remain concealed for a long time, sometimes 

 running several hundred yards before it rises. 



