VARIETIES OP GROUSE. 19 



all intermediate shades. The whole length of the cock is 

 about sixteen inches on the average, and his weight about 

 twenty-four ounces and a half. The hen is smaller, averaging 

 in weight about twenty-three ounces. The patch of naked 

 skin over the eye is also smaller. The red and brown tints 

 are likewise lighter in colour, and the plumage is more 

 variegated. In the summer, all the feathers of the upper 

 part of the head and neck are a yellowish chesnut with a 

 few black spots ; those of the lower neck, breast, back, wing, 

 and tail coverts, are brown, transversely barred with black 

 and tipped with yellow. Red grouse have been bred in 

 aviaries, and in this way they may be brought up in con- 

 siderable numbers, but they are difficult birds to rear, and 

 the plan is not a profitable one. Although usually pairing, 

 there is reliable evidence that a single cock has been seen to 

 mate with two hens in several instances. 



The PTARMIGAN (Lagopus albus) is the smallest of the 

 grouse found in this country, and is now confined to the 

 tops of the high ranges of hills in the northern parts of Scot- 

 land and also in the Hebrides and Orkneys. In Ireland and 

 Wales it is not known. On the Continent of Europe it is 

 met with on most of the elevated mountain ranges, and its 

 range extends to Greenland and the most northerly parts of 

 North America. In Norway another species (Lagopus sub- 

 alpinus) is often confounded with it; but this is a larger bird, 

 and inhabits a higher range of the mountains. The male 

 ptarmigan of Scotland has the following changes of plumage : 

 In winter, the beak, lore, and a small patch behind the eye, 

 are black; irides yellowish brown; over the eye a naked red 

 skin; almost all the plumage pure white; shafts of the 

 primary quill feathers black; the four upper tail feathers 

 white, the fourteen other tail feathers black tipped with 

 white; legs and toes white ; the claws black. The male in 

 May and November has the throat white; head and neck 

 mottled with blackish and speckled-grey feathers, a few 

 others with narrow bars of black and ochrous yellow; the 

 white feathers assuming the greyish black by a change of the 

 colour, as particularly observed in progress in a male bird in 

 March, when the few feathers which were then growing were 

 all greyish black ; the breast, back, and upper tail feathers. 



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