2 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



places is it more numerous than on the moors of South York- 

 shire and Derbyshire in the vicinity of Sheffield ; while to the 

 west it not only occurs in decreasing numbers to Shropshire, 

 but is found in Wales as far south as Glamorganshire, and in 

 Ireland in most suitable localities. Attempts have been made 

 to acclimatise it to the north and south of its proper range ; 

 but the few pairs turned down in Shetland between 1858 and 

 1883, with a greater number in 1901, have never thriven, while 

 their descendants are apparently extinct, and the same may 

 be said of those introduced into Surrey, Norfolk, and elsewhere, 

 with three exceptions. The first instance is that noticed by 

 Professor Newton in his " Dictionary of Birds," 1 where it is stated 

 that Baron Dickson succeeded in acclimatising the species near 

 Gottenburg in Sweden ; the second is that of its introduction 

 in 1893-1894 to the Hohe Venn, a high tract of moorland on the 

 borders of Belgium and Germany, south of Spa, where Red 

 Grouse are still thriving ; and the third the successful experi- 

 ment on Lord Iveagh's property at Icklingham in Suffolk in 

 1903, where the birds, despite the necessity of an artificial 

 water supply on the dry, sandy heaths, had increased in 1909, 

 and appeared likely in 1910 to form a permanent colony. In 

 the Hohe Venn district after two failures fifty pairs or more 

 were liberated in August 1894, and by 1901 had increased to 

 about a thousand head in spite of regular shooting. Professor 

 Somerville of Oxford, who has kindly furnished particulars, 

 saw the birds there in September 1910. 



The Red Grouse of Britain belongs to Lagopus, the only 

 genus of Grouse common to both hemispheres in which even the 

 digits are feathered. This genus contains six well-defined species : 

 the Spitsbergen Ptarmigan (L. hemileucurus) and the Rocky 

 Mountain Ptarmigan (L. leucurus) only found in the regions 

 after which they are named the Ptarmigan of Scotland and 

 the mountains of the Palaearctic area (L. mutus), the " Iceland " 

 Ptarmigan of that island, Greenland and the lower grounds of 

 Northern Siberia and Arctic America (L. rupestris), the Willow 



1 " Dictionary of Birds," p. 389. 



