18 VAKIETIES OF SHOOTING. 



into those parts of the moor where their food is near the 

 ground. The young birds feed on the shoots of the ling and 

 fine leaves of the heather, together with the leaves and 

 berries of the fine-leaved wortle. Both old and young will 

 take grain or seeds of any of the grass tribe when they meet 

 with them, in addition to the food which I have already 

 alluded to, and which forms their regular diet. The general 

 characters of the red grouse are as follows : Bill very short, 

 and clothed at the base with feathers; upper mandible 

 convex, and bent down at the point ; eyebrows naked ; wings 

 short, concave, with the third and fourth feathers the 

 longest; tail square at the end in most cases; legs and feet 

 completely feathered; hind toe very short, and barely 

 touching the ground with the tip of the nail. There is a 

 great difference in the size and also in the plumage of grouse, 

 according to the district in which they are found. All are 

 more or less marked with brown, white, and black, but the 

 shades of these, and consequently the predominating colour, 

 will vary from a dark to a light brown. Mr. Yarrell thus 

 minutely describes a male bird in his first year's plumage, 

 killed in December : Beak black ; irides hazel, with a cre- 

 scentic patch of vermilion-red skin over the eye, fringed at 

 its tipper free edges; head and neck reddish brown, more 

 rufous than any other part of the bird ; back, wing, and tail 

 coverts chesnut brown, barred transversely and speckled with 

 black ; distributed among the plumage are several feathers 

 in which the ground colour is of a bright yellowish brown; 

 all the quill feathers dark umber brown; the secondaries 

 and the tertials edged on the outside, and freckled with 

 lighter brown; the tail of eighteen feathers the seven on 

 each outside dark umber brown, the four middle feathers 

 chesnut brown, barred with black; on the breast the 

 plumage is darker than on the sides, almost black, and 

 tipped with white; the chesnut-brown feathers on the 

 sides, flanks, belly, vent, and under tail coverts, tipped with 

 white; legs and toes covered with short greyish-white 

 feathers; claws long, bluish-brown colour at the base, nearly 

 white at the end. The old male has many of the body-feathers 

 tipped with yellow, and the red colour is of a lighter tint. 

 Sometimes grouse are met with of a cream colour, and of 



