Moorland Birds 



Whistling PJover. Their two eggs might easily 

 be overlooked, so similar are they to the stones 

 which surround them, for they are either dark or 

 light stone colour, blotched and streaked with 

 blackish-brown, and it often happens that the 

 two eggs laid by the same bird differ widely 

 from each other. 



The heather-clad moors of the north are the 

 home of many birds which do not nest in the 

 south of England, or only do so sparingly on the 

 forests of Dartmoor and Exinoor. Of these, the 

 Red Grouse has the first claim to our attention, 

 not on account of its general prevalence, still less 

 because of its intimate connection with the 1 2th of 

 August, but because it is the only bird indigenous 

 to the British Islands alone. Its general appear- 

 ance above is reddish-brown speckled and barred 

 with black, but as the bird is so well known, and 

 as there are so many variations and so many annual 

 changes of plumage, I shall not attempt to describe 

 it. A peculiarity of the Red Grouse, however, 

 is that the male and female moult at different 

 times of the year the male in autumn and winter, 

 the female in summer and autumn. It nests among 

 the heather, laying from five to nine eggs of dirty 

 white ground colour, blotched and spotted with 

 umber-brown. On the summits of the most 

 mountainous districts of Scotland, above the range 

 of heather, the Grouse is replaced by the Ptarmigan, 

 a bird chiefly noticeable for the fact that in the win- 



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