THE ORIGIN OF GROUSE. 197 



XXXIII. 

 THE ORIGIN OF GROUSE. 



A HAMPER of grouse from a friend in Scotland has a 

 double interest, biological and culinary. I shall hand 

 over the four even brace to the cook for further opera- 

 tions ; and I shall dissect the odd bird as an ornitho- 

 logical study. The common red grouse of the Scotch 

 moors indeed may be considered in one particular as 

 the most interesting living group of British birds. They 

 form at present the only species of higher vertebrates 

 entirely peculiar to these islands. We have, it is true, 

 several local species of British trout, found only in 

 certain small pools or mountain tarns of Wales, Scotland, 

 or Ireland ; but beside the red, grouse we have no indi- 

 genous bird, mammal, reptile, or amphibian wholly 

 peculiar to our own country. This fact gives a very 

 singular interest to the grouse, and naturally suggests 

 the question, whence did it come to us ? 



As a whole, there can be no doubt that the mass of 

 our existing British fauna and flora is North European, 

 and that it reached our shores in the interval between 

 the last glacial period and the final insulation of Great 

 Britain and Ireland. It is now universally acknow- 

 ledged by biologists and geologists that after the great 



