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side, and shot several at different times out of my carriage. They had then partly assumed the 

 summer plumage ; and one, an old male, shot early in May, was already in almost full summer 

 dress. In the flat country near Uleaborg, in large tracts covered with low bushes, and scattered 

 through with tolerably large birch trees and conifer-growth, I found the Willow-Grouse 

 numerous, and had ample opportunities of observing its habits during the breeding-season. I 

 always observed them singly or in pairs ; and in the early spring I have often, when sleeping out 

 in the open air, enticed the males almost to our camp-fire by imitating their call-note. They 

 begin to move about very early in the morning ; and one of the first sounds heard is the peculiar 

 back, back, brrr, brrr of the Willow-Grouse. At this season of the year the males are par- 

 ticularly pugnacious ; and though monogamous, it is affirmed by many careful observers that they 

 hold a sort of lelc like the Blackgame and Capercaillie, and engage in desperate combats for the 

 possession of the females. I have personally never seen any thing of this description ; but there 

 is no doubt that the males often fight and may at any time be heard challenging and flying 

 towards each other. When the male flies off, it utters a cackling note, resembling that of our 

 common Grouse ; and when strutting to and fro with outstretched neck and expanded tail, dis- 

 playing his plumage for the benefit of the female, he utters a clear note, like kavao, kavao, which 

 the female answers with a low, rather subdued, mewing note, neeau, neeau. About the latter 

 end of May the female has deposited her eggs, which are placed in a very simple nest, consisting 

 merely of a hole scratched under a bush, and but slightly lined with bits of grass-straws or fine 

 twigs of the dwarf birch, or of the small berry-growing bushes so common in the high north. 

 In number the eggs vary from seven or eight to fourteen or fifteen, -and even more ; but I have 

 never found a nest with more than twelve. Compared with the eggs of our Scotch Grouse, I 

 can find no appreciable difference ; and if mixed up together, I believe that it is quite impossible 

 to separate them. The young are able to take care of themselves almost as soon as they emerge 

 from the shell, and when suddenly surprised hide with great celerity. They are most carefully 

 tended by both parents ; and when I have suddenly come upon a pair with their young I have 

 been greatly interested in observing the extreme solicitude with which both the male and the 

 female have tried to divert my attention and lure me from the place, at the same time exhibiting 

 a disregard of danger concerning themselves which at other times they were far from showing. 

 I once came so silently and suddenly on a family, that I succeeded in pouncing on and securing 

 a couple of young ones, which I put into my shooting-coat pocket, intending to convert them 

 into specimens ; but the poor mother exhibited such extreme distress that I had not the heart to 

 deprive her of them, and let them go again, thus deferring the opportunity of getting the young 

 in down till a more convenient occasion, which, I may add, did not again present itself; and I 

 have since somewhat blamed myself for being so soft-hearted. The young birds grow quickly ; 

 and I have seen them full-grown early in August. At that season of the year they are in 

 families, each pair escorting their brood ; but later in the season they pack in flocks of con- 

 siderable magnitude, and I have heard reliable sportsmen declare that they often number as 

 many as a thousand in one pack ; but I have never seen a pack of any great size. After a slight 

 fall of snow, when the footprints are clearly visible, I have frequently tracked them, and either 

 shot them on the ground or as they took wing ; but, as a rule, I have found them rather wild 

 and difficult to approach within range. 



