PREFx\.CE. IX 



the autumn, until the following spring, when they totally disappeared. 

 A strict search was made for them, but in vain. It was imagined that 

 they might have taken flight to the Wicklow hills, about five miles 

 from the place in which they were, and have been shot there. 



Ked Grouse. — (Varieties in colour) see p. 47. November 1849. — 

 1 saw in the shop of Mr. Glennon, bird-preserver, Dublin, two speci- 

 mens exhibiting a great deal of fawn-colour in their plumage, a few 

 feathers only, on the belly, being of the ordinary fine rich brown. 

 They are extremely similar to each other, probably of the one 

 brood, and were killed at the same place. The colours have such a 

 patch-work appearance that they cannot be well described. The usual 

 dark brown is replaced by very pale dull brown, and the black markings 

 by others of a dusky hue. A uniform very pale yellowish fawn-colour 

 appears in irregular patches from head to tail, both on the upper and 

 under surface of the body ; about as much being of this colour as of 

 the mixed brown, with dusky markings. These birds presented no 

 beauty of appearance. 



Another variety which I saw in the same place was remarkably 

 handsome, owing to pale grey or white taking the place of brown 

 throughout its entire plumage, and all the black markings remaining 

 as usual. It was thus like a ptarmigan {T. lagopus) in summer 

 plumage. Another bird quite similar to this had been received in a 

 previous year by Mr. Glennon, but from a different county. All these 

 varieties were killed in Ireland. 



The Quail (see p. 66) is so Httle known in Great Britain, com- 

 paratively to what it is in Ireland, that the following detailed observa- 

 tions are given here as supplementary to those contained in another 

 part of this volume : — they were made subsequently to its being printed. 

 Holywood House, County Down, 1849. — As this place, where I resided 

 in the summer and autumn of the present year, is a favourite locality 

 for quails — perhaps as much so as any in Ireland, I embraced the 

 opportunity of making various notes upon the species, of which the 

 following is the result. During the month of August, from morning 



