

Red Grouse. 329 



127. RED GROUSE. (Lagopus Scoticus). 



This species, so peculiarly British (for it is unknown elsewhere), 

 and in certain districts so extremely abundant, for where it has 

 been most carefully protected and encouraged it literally swarms 

 to an astonishing extent, is only of accidental occurrence in Wilt- 

 shire. Colonel Montagu speaks of a female taken alive near Wed- 

 hampton in this county, in the winter of the year 1794, as pointed 

 out to that distinguished naturalist by Mr. Poore; and I have infor- 

 mation of another killed by the late Mr. Colston's keeper at 

 Roundway Park, near Devizes ; while a third is in the possession 

 of Major Heneage, which was killed at Compton Basse tt ; and the 

 Rev. A. P. Morres, on the authority of Mr. E. Baker, of Mere, 

 mentions a fourth which was shot by some sportsman when 

 partridge-shooting at West Knoyle in 1848 ; while Mr. Grant, 

 of Devizes, mentions a fifth killed in August, 1866, at Wedhamp- 

 ton, the same locality which saw the capture of the bird recorded 

 by Colonel Montagu. These must have been stragglers from 

 Wales, and were probably driven out of their course by the pre- 

 valence of high winds. Unlike the species previously described, 

 the Red Grouse is not polygamous, and never perches on trees ; it 

 also differs from them in having the toes completely feathered ; 

 hence its generic name lagopus, ' rough-footed like a hare/ 

 Though standing alone among birds as really confined to these 

 islands, and so par excellence THE British bird, the Red Grouse 

 is our representative here of the ' Willow Grouse ' of Norway, 

 Dal Rype (Lagopus sub-alpinus), which frequents the lower parts 

 of the fjeld, and the mountain-side clothed with birch and alder, 

 unlike its more hardy relative Fydll Rype (Lagopus alpinus), 

 identical with our Ptarmigan, which prefers the high mountain 

 ranges, and the rocky snow-clad heights. Both of these species 

 I have shot in some numbers in Norway, and I never could suffi- 

 ciently admire the extraordinary resemblance of their plumage to 

 the localities they severally represented, so that it was quite diffi- 

 cult to distinguish them on the ground, though within a few 

 paces, so well did their colour assimilate to the herbage or lichen- 



