THE CHANGES OF PLUMAGE IN RED GROUSE 71 



the white spotting is not entirely confined to the blacker or to 

 the darker birds, though in the lowlands and in the north of 

 England, especially in Yorkshire, it is only exceptionally met 

 with. 



Mr Ogilvie-Grant, in his " Handbook to the Game Birds," 

 1896, says : " The ordinary varieties of the male may be divided 

 into three distinct types of plumage : a red form, a black form, 

 and a white-spotted form." ! 



The red form, he says, " is mostly to be found on the low 

 grounds of Ireland, the west coast of Scotland, and the Outer 

 Hebrides" ; 2 and this statement is borne out not only by the 

 Committee's collection of Grouse skins, but by the interesting 

 collection made by Mr T. E. Buckley now in the Cambridge 

 Museum. Similar birds have been obtained in some numbers 

 from Caithness, Sutherland, the Lewes, and Inverness-shire. 

 From Stirling, Selkirk, Northumberland, and Wicklow only 

 one or two have been examined, but in Wales the red type is 

 almost always met with. Welsh birds are often most typically 

 and uniformly very bright red. Dumfriesshire also undoubtedly 

 produces a large proportion of the same red type. 



Bright red birds are not commonly characteristic of Ross- 

 shire, Stirlingshire, or Northumberland notwithstanding the 

 fact that an occasional example of this type may be found in 

 these counties. Dumbartonshire, however, and Argyllshire are 

 said to produce more birds of a bright red type than other 

 counties, and both these counties fall in with Sutherlandshire 

 as forming part of the west coast of Scotland. 



Examples of the red type of the cock Grouse are given in 

 Pis. in. and iv. -^V^ 



The second or black form of cock Grouse is, according to 

 Mr Ogilvie-Grant, rarely met with, most of the black birds 

 being mixed with the red or white-spotted forms. In the 

 Committee's collection there are a few very good examples of 

 the really black type, and they come from the following 

 areas : Caithness, Sutherland, Perthshire, Dumbartonshire, and 



1 " Handbook to the Game Birds," p. 27. 2 Ibid., p. 28. 



