238 GALLIFORMES CHAP. 



a white bar on the wing, and white under tail-coverts. The female 

 is rufous and buff, barred and spotted with black, and shewing but 

 little white. This bird is usually found on broken ground or 

 in open woodlands, where it conceals itself among long heath, 

 bracken, or grass. The polygamous cocks meet at dawn in spring 

 to fight for the hens, parading before them in great excitement 

 with depressed outspread tails, while uttering a drumming or 

 cooing noise. At other times the call-note is loud and clear. 

 The flight is powerful but heavy ; the food includes berries, seeds, 

 grain, shoots, buds, and insects. The nest is merely a scantily- 

 lined hollow, situated at the foot of a tree, or in heather and the 

 like, often near plantations. The six to ten eggs have a yellowish 

 ground-colour, with scattered orange-brown blotches, the markings 

 being larger than in the Capercaillie. In some winters these Grouse 

 allow themselves to be snowed up, as occasionally do other species. 

 L. mlokosiewiczi of the Caucasus has the rectrices only slightly 

 curved, and black under tail-coverts. Hybrids between the Black 

 Cock and the Willow Grouse are called Eiporre in Scandinavia. 



Lagopus scoticus, the Ked Grouse or Muirfowl, the only bird 

 entirely confined to our islands, differs from its congeners in never 

 becoming white in winter. It varies considerably in coloration, 1 

 but is usually considered a local form of the Willow Grouse 

 (L. allus) of the north of Europe, Asia, and America. The male 

 in both summer and winter is more or less chestnut-brown above, 

 with black markings and a reddish head ; the lower parts are 

 similar, but are usually spotted with white. In autumn the brown 

 of the upper parts becomes buff, and the lower surface is barred 

 with buff and black. Mr. Ogilvie Grant 2 recognises three types of 

 plumage in the male, a red form with no white spots, from Ireland 

 and Western Scotland ; a blackish variety comparatively rarely 

 found ; and another largely spotted with white below or even above. 

 Intermediate specimens constitute the bulk of our birds. The 

 female exhibits, moreover, a buff- spotted and a buff-barred form ; 

 but in summer she is typically black above with concentric buff 

 markings, and buff below with black bars. Her autumn plumage, 

 which continues throughout the winter, is black, spotted with 

 buff and barred with rufous. Little need be said of the habits 

 of this well-known species, nor will space allow of a description of 

 the methods of killing it by driving and so forth ; but it may be 



1 T. E. Buckley, P.Z.S. 1882, pp. 112-116. 2 Cat. Birds Brit. Mus. xxii. 1893, p. 36. 



