50 KED GROUSE. 



white ground; they measure in length one inch and three-quarters, by one inch and a 

 quarter in breadth. The young run as soon as hatched. Incubation is performed by 

 the female alone, but the cock bird is seldom far off, and when the young are hatched 

 assists the female in bringing them up. During the autumn and winter they continue 

 together, and do not separate until the pairing season. During the winter it is a frequent 

 occurrence for several broods to join together, and form packs of forty or fifty birds; 

 they are under such circumstances extremely wary and wild, and are with great difficulty 

 obtained by the sportsman. 



The Red Grouse is readily domesticated, and becomes very tame and familiar, and 

 they have even bred when in confinement; Daniel mentions several instances of this, 

 and Sir"W. Jardine says he has "known a brood hatched under a kitchen dresser." It 

 is seldom, however, that the young have come to maturity; nor indeed can we wonder 

 at this; for, as we remarked when speaking of the Black Grouse, the food of adult and 

 young birds is generally so different, that what is suitable for the one is often very 

 injurious to the other. Before these kind of experiments can be frequently successful, 

 much more must be known as to the food of the young poults from their earliest age; 

 and this can only be accurately ascertained by careful examinations of the contents of 

 their crops, when feeding in a wild state. 



In some seasons, Sir William Jardine says, the young birds suffer greatly from tape- 

 worm, which almost annihilates the whole of them in the districts where it prevails as 

 an epidemic. The old birds also sometimes suffer severely from an epidemic, which 

 appears to be connected with inflammation of the liver; with respect to this disease we 

 quote the following from the pen of Mr. C. St. John: — He says that "on the 12th. of 

 August on one occasion (1847) I found a few old Grouse lying dead, killed by the 

 prevailing disease, which of late years has committed such havoc among these birds in 

 certain districts; some which we killed were already attacked by it. Whenever this 

 was the case, we invariably observed that the plumage of the bird was much altered, 

 having a rusty red appearance, instead of the fine rich colour characteristic of the 

 Grouse; the feathers, too, had an unnatural kind of dryness about them, which gave 

 the bird a bleached, unhealthy look. In those Grouse which I opened myself, the presence 

 of the disease was indicated by the liver being apparently rotten. Whatever is the 

 cause of this mortality, it is a matter of some consequence to the proprietors of those 

 districts where the Grouse shootings let for as high or a higher rent than the sheep 

 pasturage; for it can scarcely be expected that Englishmen will continue paying at the 

 rate they do for the right of shooting over tracts of ground where the Grouse are 

 becoming almost extinct, as is the case in several places." As to the best method of 

 checking this exterminating disease, which seems to be an epidemic inflammatory affection 

 of the liver, Mr. St. John recommends destroying all the birds in the infected places. 



