THE CHANGES OF PLUMAGE IN RED GROUSE 43 



of the cock Grouse's plumage, and if a large number of skins 

 can be arranged as suggested the time at which the Grouse 

 has definitely changed from the one plumage to the other 

 cannot possibly be overlooked. The birds obtained at the end 

 of May are definitely in the darker and redder winter plumage, 

 and those procured at the end of June are definitely in the 

 paler and more buff - coloured summer plumage; those killed 

 at the beginning of October are still partly in the paler summer 

 plumage, and by the end of November all are in the darker 

 winter plumage. 



It must, however, be added, that there is hardly a month 

 in the whole year, or a Grouse skin in a collection of many 

 hundreds covering every month of the year, in which one plumage 

 only can be found unmixed with the other. This fact accounts 

 largely for the misunderstanding which at one time existed, 

 but which has now, we hope, been satisfactorily settled, in 

 respect of the vexed question of moult and plumage changes 

 in the Red Grouse, and their proper interpretation. 



Without referring in detail to the points upon which differ- 

 ences of opinion have before now arisen, it may be shown that 

 much misunderstanding upon this difficult subject is based 

 upon a different rendering of facts into words, facts which were 

 recognised and perfectly well explained by Mr Ogilvie-Grant 

 in 1893. 1 Both he and Mr Millais have made the subject of 

 plumage changes in the game-birds, and especially in the 

 Grouse, a special study, and it must be admitted that there 

 are very few points upon which they have touched which 

 seem to require further explanation and still fewer points, if 

 any, which can be brought to light for the first tiriie in connec- 

 tion with the plumage changes of the Red Grouse. A mono- 

 graph on the Red Grouse would, however, be obviously incom- 

 plete without an account of the plumage changes of the bird 

 itself ; and it so happens that during the six years of the Grouse 



1 (1) "Annals and Magazine of Natural History" (6), xii., July 1893, pp. 62-65 ; 

 (2) "Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum," vol. xxii., November 1893, 

 pp. 36-38; (3) "Annals of Scottish Natural History," July 1894, pp. 129-140, 

 PI. v. and vi. 



