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GROUSE. 



THE two distinct kinds of grouse that inhabit the 

 moors and wilds of the Alpine parts of Britain, are 

 among the most famed of its feathered tribes ; and one 

 of them, the 



RED GROUSE (lagopus Scoticus) is almost peculiar 

 to this island ; or, if those continental birds .which have 

 been called by the same name are of the same species, 

 they are different varieties, occasioned probably by 

 difference of food and climate. It is rather singular 

 that these birds, which are so rare in Europe as not to 

 have been known to Linnaeus as any thing else than a 

 supposed variety of the ptarmigan, should have been 

 met with in Tristan d'Acunha, a lonely island in the 

 opposite hemisphere, between St. Helena and the Cape 

 of Good Hope. 



In this country they are found in the open heaths 

 only ; so that the names of heathcock, which they get in 

 England, and moorcock, which they get in Scotland, are 

 strictly apposite. So fond are they of heath, that they 

 are very seldom met with in the grassy parts of the 

 moors ; and they quit a planted moor as soon as the 

 trees make any considerable appearance, even though 

 the heath should have been improved by the planting, 

 which it generally is until the pines the trees most 

 generally planted on heaths have grown so large, as to 

 exclude the air, and destroy the heath with their falling 

 leaves. We knew one large heath, the centre of which 

 was once very thickly stocked with grouse ; but after 

 it had been planted for a few years, the birds entirely 

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