RED GROUSE. 
LAGOPUS SCOTICUS (Lath.). 
Tetrao scoticus, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii. p. 641 (1790) ; Hewitson, 
i. p. 279. 
Lagopus scoticus, Macg. i. p. 169; Yarr. ed. 4, iii. p. 73; 
Dresser, vii. p. 165. 
Although I have had my full share of days on the 
heather in pursuit of Grouse in Scotland, England, and 
Ireland, I should find it very difficult to add, from my 
personal acquaintance with the bird, anything worthy of 
record to the innumerable articles already published 
with regard to it from every possible point of view,— 
ornithologic, poetic, politico-economic, sporting, and 
culinary. ‘To most of my readers the fact that the Red 
Grouse is the only bird that we can claim as exclusively 
British, is probably well known; all sportsmen are well 
aware of the fact that its principal food consists of the 
shoots of the common ling and heath, with various 
moor-berries, and that, although many Grouse come 
down to glean on the oat-stubbles in autumn, they 
seldom voluntarily leave their native moors for any 
considerable distance, except in extraordinary stress of 
weather. It is quite unnecessary here to dilate upon 
