RED GROUSE. 199 



March, 1794, near Pendle Hill, in Yorkshire, by the game- 

 keeper of Mr. Lister, afterwards Lord Ribblesdale; and a nest 

 with fifteen eggs was found on the 25th. of March, 1835, on 

 Shap Fell, Westmoreland. The female usually begins to lay 

 in March or April; she sits very close, and Mr. Salmon says 

 that one allowed him to take her off her eggs. 



The nest is made of twigs of heather and grass, with 

 occasionally a few of the bird's own feathers, and is placed 

 among heath in some slight hollow. 



The eggs are usually six or seven, but sometimes from 

 eight to twelve, or even more, in number, of different shades 

 of ground colour reddish white, brownish yellow, yellowish 

 grey, or yellowish white, thickly . clouded, blotted, and dotted 

 with blackish and brown: they are nearly of a regular oval 

 form. 



While the young are hatching, the hen utters an occasional 

 chuckle. The Heath Poults leave the nest shortly after they 

 are hatched, and are soon able to fly; they keep together till 

 the end of autumn, unless disturbed by shooters: they are 

 attended by both the parents. At the beginning of the 

 season they lie close, but gradually become wild as they are 

 disturbed. 



Male; weight, about nineteen or twenty ounces, and from 

 that to twenty-three, or even to twenty-four and three 

 quarters, or upwards; the Grouse of Yorkshire are said to 

 be the smallest, but Daniel, in his 'Rural Sports,' mentions 

 one killed near .Richmond, in Yorkshire, which weighed 

 twenty-five ounces, and Pennant another which weighed 

 twenty-nine; one killed in Wales weighed thirty ounces, and 

 another twenty-six ounces; another near Todmorden, in Lan- 

 cashire, one pound fifteen ounces. Length, from one foot 

 three inches and a quarter, to a little over one foot four and 

 a half; bill, brownish black, half hidden in feathers there are 

 a few small white feathers at the base, ending in a thread 

 of white on the side of the head; iris, chesnut brown; the 

 membrane over the eyebrows red, the feathers of the eyelids 

 white. Head, deep chesnut brown; the crown irregularly 

 barred in summer with brownish black, as is the neck on 

 the back and nape; chin, throat, and breast, reddish chesnut 

 brown, the latter blackish brown on its middle part, the 

 chesnut bars being narrower than the black ones, and some 

 of the feathers are white at their tips; the ground colour 

 paler, and more barred in summer. Back, reddish brown, 



