46 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
writers, this species seems, at one period, to have inhabited some 
of the mountainous ridges of Cumberland and Westmoreland.” 
Selby is the first to omit Wales. 
A few years later, Sir W. Jardine, in his ‘Game Birds’ (1834), 
says:—‘“‘ According to Pennant, and some contemporary writers, 
these birds were found on the hills of Westmoreland and Cum- 
berland; and, I believe, recollections now exist of a few having 
been seen upon the high ranges which appear on the opposite 
border of Scotland. These have been for some time extirpated, 
and unless a few solitary pairs remain on Skiddaw, or some of its 
precipitous neighbours, the range of the Grampians will be its 
most southern British station.” The same words are repeated in 
Jardine’s ‘Birds of Great Britain and Ireland,’ part iii. (1842) ; 
but I have not been able to discover who were these earlier 
and contemporary writers, unless Latham, Walcott, Lewin, and 
Heysham are intended, all of whom, with perhaps the exception 
of Heysham, evidently copied from Pennant. 
Jenyns (1835) gives Cumberland and Westmoreland; Mac- 
gillivray (1887) Wales and North England; and, lastly, Yarrell, 
in all three editions, still repeats Cumberland and Westmoreland, 
as former localities for the Ptarmigan. 
Thus, for more than a hundred years, we find Pennant’s 
original station of Keswick continually quoted, and this apparently 
without any confirmation, or fresh enquiries; and the range has 
been even extended, so as to include Westmoreland. We have 
Wales repeated up to 1837, although Latham is the sole and 
unsupported authority for the statement; and we are led to 
conclude, from the silence of Pennant, and the want of any 
corroboration since the time of Latham, together with the omission 
of Wales by many of our best authorities, that Latham uncon- 
sciously added Wales, in the belief that he had quoted it from 
Pennant, who was so well known as an authority concerning his 
own country. 
Dismissing Wales, then, as probably a misquotation, I believe 
I am now able to offer a possible explanation of the Keswick 
locality, through the assistance of my friend Mr. W. K. Dover. 
Mr. Dover, himself residing at Keswick, has kindly instituted 
enquiries on the spot, and he tells me that there is, even now, a 
“ white” or white-mottled variety of the Red Grouse, known to 
frequent Skiddaw Forest. His friends have there met with a 
