70 THE GROUSE IN HEALTH AND IN DISEASE 



The largest series of skins is therefore that of the male 

 birds in winter plumage, and it so happens that this set, both 

 as regards sex and plumage, is best adapted by its general 

 uniformity to give some result when arranged map -wise over a 

 large outline of Scotland and England. 



Having arranged the skins into lots which are sufficiently 

 uniform to allow of comparison, and having arranged one of 

 these lots, the cocks in their winter plumage, for instance, 

 according to the localities from which they were obtained, it 

 becomes possible to make the following deductions : 



(1) That the general uniformity is very much more marked 



than might have been expected considering the 

 character for variability which has always been 

 attributed to the bird ; the variability is lost in the 

 mass, though it is visible in individuals. 



(2) That, allowing for a good many exceptions, there is 



certainly a greater tendency to blackness in the birds 

 of the northern Highlands than in those of the south. 

 Or, one may say that in passing from the north of 

 Scotland southward and westward, there is an increas- 

 ing tendency to the bright red and dark red types of 

 Grouse, which culminate in the very characteristically 

 bright red bird of Wales and of the Midlands of England, 

 in which the predominating colour of the feathers of 

 the breast and under parts generally is red with fine 

 broken black cross-lines, while these cross-lines are 

 sometimes almost absent. 



(3) This gradual change from north to south of black, or 



red and black to dark red cocks, and farther south to 

 bright red cocks is accompanied (speaking very broadly, 

 for there are many exceptions) by a loss of the white 

 terminal borders which characterise the feathers of the 

 abdomen. 



There is no doubt that the blacker birds of the Highlands 

 of the north of Scotland are more frequently white spotted 

 beneath than the birds obtained farther south. Nevertheless, 



