THE RED GROUSE. 49 



and other notes might frequently be heard at all hours of the day 

 throughout the year : they were uttered without regard to the 

 number of persons near the aviary at the time. Indeed the birds 

 became so familiar or bold as to utter their " go back/' and " go 

 away/' when persons approached the aviary, and they replied in 

 these words to those who imitated their calls. They were accused 

 of saying to intruders " be off/' as distinctly as " go back " and 

 " go away/' and certainly their notes fairly bore this interpre- 

 tation. The birds were generally believed to use the words in the 

 same sense that their hearers would do ! 



The red grouse appears to breed rarely in confinement. Among 

 the few instances on record, Daniel, in his " Eural Sports/' men- 

 tions three, one of which was in Ireland, at Eathfarnham House, 

 county of Dublin, in 1802. Mr. Howard, of Eoundtown, near 

 Dublin, informed me, when visiting his interesting collection of 

 living birds in May 1849, that a pair of red grouse, which he 

 had a few years ago, bred ; five young being produced and 

 reared. 



I have twice within about twenty years known single grouse to 

 be killed on a low and narrow bare strip of land, called the Kin- 

 negar, which stretches in a direction parallel to the nearest line of 

 coast — a miniature promontory — into the bay of Belfast, about 

 four miles from the town. On both occasions there was a little 

 frost and a powdering of snow on the mountains at the opposite 

 side of the bay, the nearest haunt of the species ; about as much 

 as drives the golden plover thence to the vicinity of the sea. The 

 first of these grouse, indeed, was credibly stated to have been 

 seen coming from the direction of the mountains in company 

 with a flock of golden plover. The second was killed on the 9th 

 March, 1849. 



The grouse breeds very early. On the 17th of March a sport- 

 ing friend once found a nest, containing eleven eggs, on the Bel- 

 fast mountains. When hare-hunting here so late as the middle of 

 April, I have more than once, to my great regret, seen the pack 

 of hounds come upon the nest, and set to work so quickly, that 

 every egg was devoured before the dogs could possibly be whipped 



VOL. II. E 



