THE CHANGES OF PLUMAGE IN RED GROUSE 63 



trying months to face on account of the strain of laying, sitting, 

 and rearing their broods, and although, thanks to the abundance 

 of food, probably most of them succeed in struggling through, 

 yet by August they have only just been freed of their more 

 pressing cares, and a great number are still to be found in very 

 poor condition. The recovery commenced, however, at the 

 moment when the strain is removed, and it is this point which 

 has so constantly been overlooked. Sick birds in August 

 are convalescent, and however many there may be, they 

 are not a sign of a new outbreak of disease, but a sign that 

 the past spring infection was a heavy one, though less fatal 

 than it might have been. 



At the end of their own specially critical periods, the cocks 

 have at any rate June, July, August, and September in which 

 to pull themselves together by means of good food assisted by 

 good weather ; whereas the hens, at the end of their own 

 specially critical period, have August and September. Hence 

 the preponderance of sick-looking hens when the shooting begins, 

 and the widespread, but erroneous, belief in a recrudescence of 

 disease in autumn. 



To return to the further consideration of the hen's change September. 

 of plumage in September, her finest feature is now undoubtedly 

 the clean new growth of bright red, or dark red, or black and 

 white-flecked feathers of the breast and abdomen, with their 

 narrow but even blacker markings. The whole of the old feathers 

 of this tract have now been shed, but they grow again so quickly 

 that no bare skin is visible save in the middle area of the abdomen 

 quite low down, where, as has been already pointed out, the 

 new growth is of belated feathers coloured as in ihe spring 

 plumage, and therefore quite different from those around 

 them. There is still, as a rule, no accession of new red feathers 

 on the chin or throat of the healthy September hen, or at the 

 most but a feather or two. But in the sick hen there is still 

 often a sprinkling of the old red feathers of the preceding 

 autumn plumage, very faded, amongst the faded buff and black 

 feathers of the belated spring plumage. On the back of even 



