272 BEITISH BIRDS 



The ptarmigan breeds in May. Its nest is well concealed, and 

 is merely a slight hollow in the ground, lined with a little dry grass. 

 Eight to ten eggs are laid, of a yellowish white blotched with dark 

 brown. In autumn or early in winter the birds pack, and some- 

 times as many as fifty are seen in one flock. Macgillivray has the 

 following interesting account of the bird in its mountain haunts : 

 'These beautiful birds, while feeding, run and walk among the 

 weather-beaten and lichen-crested fragments of rock, from which it 

 is very difficult to distinguish them when they remain motionless, 

 as they invariably do should a person be in sight. Indeed, unless 

 you are directed to a particular spot by their strange low, croaking 

 cry, you may pass through a flock of ptarmigans without observing 

 a single individual, although some of them may not be ten yards 

 distant. When squatted, however, they utter no sound, their object 

 being to conceal themselves ; and if you discover the one from which 

 the cry has proceeded, you generally find him on the top of a stone, 

 ready to spring off the moment you show an indication of hostility. 

 If you throw a stone at him, he rises, utters his call, and is 

 immediately joined by all the individuals around, which, to your 

 surprise, if it be your first rencontre, you see spring up one by one 

 from the bare ground.' 



Red Grouse. 



Lagopus scoticus. 



Plumage reddish brown on the head and neck, and chestnut 

 brown, barred and speckled with black, on the upper parts ; the 

 feathers of the breast almost black, with white tips. In summer the 

 general colour is lighter ; in winter the under parts are frequently 

 mottled with white. Length, sixteen inches. Female : more reddish 

 yellow in colour. 



One sunny morning a few months ago, as I stood on a mountain 

 slope among bracken, ling, and furze, and scattered masses of grey 

 rock, watching a small party of grouse near me, it struck me that I 

 had never looked on a more beautiful creature than this bird : so 

 finely shaped and richly coloured, and proud and free in carriage, 

 and in such perfect harmony with the rough vegetation and that wild 

 and solitary nature amid which it exists. It is not strange that this 

 species should have a fascination above all others for the sportsman 



