310 RURAL BIRD LIFE. 



rapid wing it cleaves the air above him on its way to the 

 marshy tracts. Suddenly he flushes the Red Grouse, the 

 bird he has come to seek, from its heathery bed, and with 

 harsh grating cries the bird bids him go bac, go bac, bac- 

 bac-bac ; and on rapid wings, now fluttering, now sailing, 

 it flies before him, and again alights a hundred yards away. 

 This, then, is the home of the Red Grouse, and these 

 his alarm notes with which he ushers an intruder into 

 his favourite, though wild and lonely, haunt. A bird of 

 which we should be justly proud, when we bear in mind 

 that in no other land, out of the British Isles, is he 

 found in a state of nature. Here he remains stationary 

 on his barren moor ; in summer, scorched by the sum- 

 mer sun, he frequents the shady heath tufts ; in the 

 winter, when the blasts sweep over the naked heights, 

 swirling with resistless fury down the bleak mountain 

 sides, he crouches low in the herbage, and ever and anon 

 fas startling notes ring out loud and clear, as if bidding 

 defiance to the very elements. 



The Red Grouse is a ground bird, roosting on the 

 ground, and drawing his sustenance from the herbage 

 growing upon it ; and so closely does his plumage re- 

 semble the heathery waste, that detection is amost im- 

 possible, and from this circumstance his chief safety 

 from predaceous birds and animals alone depends. 

 Yet sometimes we see him in the stunted trees grow- 

 ing on the moor, but more often see him perched on 

 the walls or rocky boulders. We must, however, bear 

 in mind that the bird but rarely visits the trees ; indeed, 

 those lovely ornaments of the vegetable world seldom 

 grace the bleak open moor ; and I am pretty certain 

 that when a Grouse is seen in the branches of a tree, and 

 thought to be the Red Grouse, it will upon closer 

 examination usually turn out to be the female of the 



