1012 DR. E. A, WILSON ON THE [J line 14, 



of the past and is now impossible except upon a very limited 

 scale. 



The attempt, however, can be made, and the number of 

 specimens in the Committee's Collection of Red Grouse skins 

 makes it possible to arrive at some conclusions. 



Part II. 



Plumage Changes of the lien Grouse. 



The vo ohangeo of plumage in the hen Grouse are c()nij)leted, 

 as has already been explained .above, in the one case by the end 

 of April or the beginning of INI ay. and in the other case by July 

 and August. 



The actual feather-changes in both cock and hen are really 

 very comparable in character, notwithstanding the discrepancy as 

 to season ; and allowing for the difierence of two months which 

 makes the moult in the two sexes asynchronous, they may be 

 described and explained in very much the same terms. 



Mr. Ogilvie-Grant was the first to draw attention to the 

 exceptional want of agreement in the sea.sons chosen by the two 

 sexes of the Red Grouse for their moults, and as in the cock's 

 plumage he makes use of the terms " autumn" and " winter- 

 sunnner" or "winter" plumages, which have therefore been used 

 heie, so in speaking of the hen's plumages it will be well to adhere 

 similarly to the expres.sions used by him, and to call them 

 " Slimmer" and " autumn-winter " or " autumn " plumages. 



Exception may be taken, and indeed has been taken, to these 

 names, as being inappropriate and inexact, but they are suffi- 

 ciently exact for all practical purposes, and so long as moults and 

 ])liimage-changes are not completed in a week but are spread over 

 a period of several months, so long will there be some inexacti- 

 tude in the terminology of these moults and plumages if they are 

 named according to the months or seasons. It is immaterial so 

 long as the term is sufficiently defined, for it is obviously 

 impossible to use a term so exact as to require no definition. 



The hen Grouse moults twice in the year, and wears her 

 '•summer-plumage" as the breeding-dress from April to July, 

 and her "autumn" or "autumn to winter" plumage from 

 August to March. 



These changes may be expressed in tei-ms of comparison with 

 the cock, as a case of plumage change in which the hen has two 

 annual moults, exactly as has the cock, but both moults occur two 

 months earlier in the hen than in the cock. 



The hen's " summer '" or breeding-plumage is a very beautiful 

 dress, variable to a considerable extent it is true, but yet having 

 a general uniformity which beConu'S the more obviousas a greater 

 .series of skins in any particular ])hase of jilumage is examined. 



Opportunities for even seeing the hen Grouse, to say nothing 

 of obtaining hei- skin, in the full breeding-i)luniage are rare; 

 and thus it has fallen out that in even the large series of Grouse 



