GROUSE SHOOTIXG. 85 



learned ornitliologist. Dr. Latham, that the red grouse 

 is peculiar to the British Islands. The male weighs 

 about nineteen ounces, and is in length about fifteen 

 inches. The bill is black, the inside hazel coloured. 

 The throat is red. Plumage on the head and neck of a 

 light tawney red. The back feathers are of a deep red, 

 and on the middle of each feather is a large black spot. 

 The breast and belly are of a dull purplish brown. The 

 wing feathers are dusty; the tail consists of eighteen 

 feathers of an equal length, all black, except the four 

 middle, which are barred with red. The thighs are of 

 a pale red ; the legs and feet clothed to the very claws, 

 with thick soft white feathers. The claws are whitish, 

 very broad and strong. The female weighs * about fifteen 

 ounces ; the colours in general are duller than those of 

 the male. The breast and belly are spotted with white, 

 and the tips of some of the covers of the wings are of 

 the same colour. These birds pair in the spring, and 

 lay from six to ten eggs. The young broods follow the 

 hen through the summer ; in the winter they pack, and 

 are sometimes found forty or fifty together, and are 

 then so shy and wild that it is extremely difficult to 

 get a shot at them. They are mostly found on the tops 

 of the hills, being rarely on the sides, and scarcely ever 

 found in the valleys. Their food is the mountain berries 

 and the tops of the heath. 



To thoroughly enjoy grouse shooting, a sportsman 



* Prince Ed'ward, of Saxe Weimar, when grouse shooting in 1858, 

 killed on the moors of Glen Tiddick a most curions specimen of a 

 grouse, which had. for two years been well known to the foresters as 

 " the blue grouse." The plumage is of blue silver grey, interspersed 

 with fawn or dove coloured feathers. 

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