WILLOW GROUSE. 115 



of very different sizes. This species rarely if ever alights on bushes or trees 

 after being fully grown, and appears to resort at all times by preference to 

 the ground, living among the naked rocks of the open morasses. 



The young birds do not acquire their full summer plumage before they 

 are two years old. Many of these middle-aged birds, as I would call tbem, 

 which our party procured early in the month of July, differed greatly from 

 the older birds, which had their broods then quite small. They were much 

 lighter in colour, their tails were shorter, and they weighed less, but afforded 

 much better eating. Some of them had young, but their broods were much 

 smaller in point of number, seldom exceeding four or five, while the old 

 birds frequently had a dozen or more. 



The flight of the Willow Grouse resembles that of the Red Grouse of 

 Scotland, being regular, swift, and on occasion protracted to a very great 

 distance. They have no whirring sound of their wings, even when put up 

 by sudden surprise. Whenever we found a pair without young, they were 

 extremely shy, and would fly from one hill to another often at a great 

 distance. If pursued, they would be seen standing erect, and boldly 

 watching our approach, until we got to the distance of a few hundred yards 

 from them, when they would run from the naked rocks into the moss, and 

 there squat so close, that unless one of the party happened to walk almost 

 over them, they remained unseen, and could not be raised. When discovered 

 and put up, they were easily shot, on account of the beautiful regularity of 

 their flight. In rising from the ground, they utter a loud and quickly 

 repeated chuck, which is continued for eight or ten yards. 



Young birds shot in Newfoundland, on the 11th of August, weighed 6i 

 ounces, and were fully fledged. Their primaries were of a sullied white, 

 but their legs were not closely covered with hair-like feathers, as in the old 

 birds. Although this species breeds in the districts inhabited by the Canada 

 Grouse, it never enters the thickets to which the latter resorts, but always 

 remains in the open grounds. 



One day, while in search of young Wild Geese, in a large, oozy, and miry 

 flat, covered with a floating bed of tangled herbage, we were much surprised 

 at finding there several Willow Grouse. They were extremely shy, and 

 flew from one part of the marsh to another. We procured with great diffi- 

 culty two, which proved to be barren females. 



To give you an idea of the difficulties we had occasionally to encounter, 

 in our endeavours to procure such birds as breed in that country, it will 

 suffice to say, that one of us was so mired in the flat just mentioned, that it 

 was with extreme difficulty another of us succeeded in extricating him, to the 

 great danger of being himself swamped, in which case we must all have 

 perished, had no aid arrived. We were completely smeared with black 



