336 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN LAPLAND. 



and leaving the shelter of the forest, at once take 

 to the open moors. But I feel certain in my own 

 mind that such would not be the case, for why do 

 they not leave the lower forests in this country, 

 and go higher up to the moors and fells which 

 border on them ? Or, why, on the contrary, do not 

 the red grouse of Scotland come down from the 

 moors into the lower forests ? 



I see Dr. Blasius allows the willow grouse to 

 be a distinct species, but then he makes the British 

 red grouse to be nothing more than a variety of 

 the ptarmigan ; thus I consider upsetting the laws 

 of nature even in a still greater degree. 



I wish, if we are not to consider that constant 

 and striking differences in the habits of life between 

 two birds of the same genus are not to justify us 

 in considering them as distinct species, some one 

 would just tell us in plain English what con- 

 stitutes the difference between a variety and a, 

 species. 



Surely it is scarcely consistent in us to set 

 down the willow grouse as nothing more than a] 

 variety of the red grouse, or the red grouse as 

 only a variety of the ptarmigan, when we retain in 

 our Fauna as distinct species, the two nightingales, 

 the lesser white-throat, the willow warbler, the 

 pied wagtail, the grey-headed yellow wagtail, the 

 tree pipit, the short-toed lark, the fire-crested 



