1028 mx. v.. A. wii.sox un tiik [Juiu'14, 



suspt'cted of being a testis, the intestines must then be ijfently 

 separated from tlieir attachments about the miihlle line of the 

 back, and the other testis must be souglit iov in about tiie same 

 position on the opposite side. 



Even in a young Ijird tlie ovarv sliovvs ova with sufficient 

 distinctness to make doubt as to its sex an impossibility ; but in 

 a very young male bird the testes may be so small, and, being 

 very often (]uite black, may look so unlike what is exjjected that 

 both should be sought for and found Ijefore arriving at a certain 

 conclusion as to sex. 



It is easy, if the iutHstines are roiiglily handli-d ami the 

 attachments torn carelessly away, to cany away the testes or the 

 ovary from their pro})er position and to remove them with the 

 intestinal attachments. The peritone.il folds are delicate and 

 re(juire cai-eful handling, and they overlie the generative organjs 

 and the kidneys; but a very little practice will enable anyone to 

 do the necessary dissection with certainty and to arrive at an 

 irrefutable diagnosis as to sex. 



It may he said that there is no other infallible means of 

 arriving at the sex of a Grouse at certain times of the year, for 

 it has so often happened that experienced and careful game- 

 keeper.s, who have handled Grouse for a lifetime, have sent in a 

 paper tilled in for a certain specimen as a cock, when the specimen 

 has turned out to be a lien, and vice versd. The mistake is 

 unavoidable and excusable, for in certain individual Gron.se in 

 the autiunn-winter plumage there is no rclial)le characteristic 

 in the feathering or in the supraorbital comb (PI. XCV. figs. 1 

 <fe 2), or in any external part of the bird, by which the .sex can be 

 ilistinguished. In most Red Grouse, even in the vast majority, 

 the confusion of sex is not po.ssible, for it is a matter of common 

 knowledge that for a great part of the year the cock and the 

 hen are so wholly uidike one another as to make it dffiicnlt for 

 anyone who did not know the birds to believe them to be of the 

 same species. Even in the summer months, when the cock puts 

 on a plumage closely simulating the breeding-plumage of the hen, 

 there is a difference in the genenil trnic and colour, and confusion 

 is not likely. In the autunni and w inter it is comparatively easy 

 to mistake the se.x; of .some individuals, when the nen has put on 

 her autumn-plumage for the winter and tlio cock has put on his 

 Avinto'-pluniage ; certain individuals of opposite .sex are then 

 intlistinguishable, even to the pi'acti.sed eyes of the experienced 

 gamekeeper. 



(generally speaking, the feathers of the head and neck give the 

 ])e.st in<lication as to sex in the autunni-winter plumage. In the 

 male the red colouring is, as a lule, far more uniform than in 

 the female. In the male there is, as a rule, an ab.sence of black 

 markings on the.se red feathers, except on the upper )iai-t of the 

 head, on the. crown, an<l nape of the neck. The cheeks are 

 generally n clear bron/.e- or chestuut-rpd colour; .so are the 

 feathers of the cliiu, tinoat, foreneck. and upper lireast, giving 



